g back each time four jars of water,
which we sell here in the city--for it is very good, sweet water--at
three _tlacos_ the jar. You see, I make a great deal of money,
senor--three _reales_ a day! If it were not for one single thing, I
should soon be rich."

That riches could be acquired rapidly on a basis of about twenty-seven
cents, in our currency, a day struck me as a novel notion. But I
inquired, gravely: "And this one thing that hinders thee from getting
rich, Pablo, what is it?"

"It is that I eat so much, senor," Pablo answered, ruefully. "Truly it
seems as though this belly of mine never could be filled. I try
valiantly to eat little and so to save my money; but my belly cries out
for more and yet more food--and so my money goes. Although I make so
much, I can scarcely save a _medio_ in a whole week, when what El Sabio
must have and what I must have is paid for. And I am trying so hard to
save just now, for before the next rainy season comes I want to own a
rain-coat. But for a good one I must pay seven _reales_. The price is
vast."

"What is a rain-coat, Pablo?"

"The senor does not know? That is strange. It is a coat woven of palm
leaves, so that all over one it is as a thatch that the rain cannot come
through. What I was saying just now to El Sabio--" Pablo stopped
suddenly, and turned aside from me in a shamefaced way, as he
remembered what he also had said to El Sabio about my laziness.

"--Was that out of the wages I am to pay thee thou canst save enough
money to buy thy coat with," I said, quickly, wishing to rid him of his
confusion. And then we fell to talking of what these wages should be,
and of how he was to help me to gain a speaking knowledge of his native
tongue--for so far we had spoken Spanish together--and of what in
general would be his duties as my servant. That El Sabio could be
anything but a part of the contract seemed never to cross Pablo's mind;
and so presently our terms were concluded, and I found myself occupying
the responsible relation of master to a mouth-organ playing boy and an
extraordinarily wise ass. It was arranged that both of these dependants
of mine should accompany me in my expedition to the Indian villages; and
to clinch our bargain I gave Pablo the seven _reales_ wherewith to buy
his rain-coat on the spot.

I was a little surprised, two days later, when we started from Morelia
on our journey into the mountains to the westward, to find that Pablo
had not bought