rd rang with
the strains of Offenbach's music.

It was plain from what he had said that this was the boy whom Fray
Antonio had promised to send to me; and notwithstanding his
uncomplimentary comments upon my laziness, I had taken already a strong
liking to him. I waited until he had played through the sabre song
again--to which, as it seemed to me, the ass listened with a slightly
critical yet pleased attention--and then I hailed him.

"The lazy Senor Americano is awake at last, Pablo," I called. "Come up
hither, and we will talk about the buying of thy rain-coat, and about
the buying of the Wise One's beans."

The boy jumped up as though a spring had been let loose beneath him, and
his shame and confusion were so great that I was sorry enough that I had
made my little joke upon him.

"It is all right, my child," I said, quickly, and with all the kindness
that I could put into my tones. "Thou wert talking to the Wise One, not
to me--and I have forgotten all that I heard. Thou art come from Fray
Antonio?"

"Yes, senor," he answered; and as he saw by my smiling that no harm had
been done, he also smiled; and so honest and kindly was the lad's face
that I liked him more and more.

"Patience for yet a little longer, Wise One," he said, turning to the
ass, who gravely wagged his ears in answer. And then the boy came up the
stair to the gallery, and so we went to my room that I might have talk
with him.

It was not much that Pablo had to tell about himself. He was a
Guadalajara lad, born in the Indian suburb of Mexicalcingo--as his
musical taste might have told me had I known more of Mexico--who had
drifted out into the world to seek his fortune. His capital was the
ass--so wise an ass that he had named him El Sabio. "He knows each word
that I speak to him, senor," said Pablo, earnestly. "And when he hears,
even a long way off, the music that I make upon the little instrument,
he know that it is from me that the music comes, and calls to me. And he
loves me, senor, as though he were my brother; and he knows that with
the same tenderness I also love him. It was the good Padre who gave him
to me. God rest and bless him always!" This pious wish, I inferred,
related not to the ass but to Fray Antonio.

"And how dost thou live, Pablo?" I asked.

"By bringing water from the Spring of the Holy Children, senor. It is
two leagues away, the Ojo de los Santos Ninos, and El Sabio and I make
thither two journeys daily. We brin