ween Salvatierra and his guest that night it becomes me
not, as a grave chronicler of the salient points of history, to relate.
I have said that Master Peleg Scudder was a fluent talker, and under
the influence of divers strong waters, furnished by his host, he became
still more loquacious. And think of a man with a twenty years' budget
of gossip! The Commander learned, for the first time, how Great Britain
lost her colonies; of the French Revolution; of the great Napoleon,
whose achievements, perhaps, Peleg colored more highly than the
Commander's superiors would have liked. And when Peleg turned
questioner, the Commander was at his mercy. He gradually made himself
master of the gossip of the Mission and Presidio, the "small-beer"
chronicles of that pastoral age, the conversion of the heathen, the
Presidio schools, and even asked the Commander how he had lost his eye!
It is said that at this point of the conversation Master Peleg produced
from about his person divers small trinkets, kickshaws, and newfangled
trifles, and even forced some of them upon his host. It is further
alleged that under the malign influence of Peleg and several glasses of
aguardiente, the Commander lost somewhat of his decorum, and behaved in
a manner unseemly for one in his position, reciting high-flown Spanish
poetry, and even piping in a thin, high voice divers madrigals and
heathen canzonets of an amorous complexion; chiefly in regard to a
"little one" who was his, the Commander's, "soul"! These allegations,
perhaps unworthy the notice of a serious chronicler, should be received
with great caution, and are introduced here as simple hearsay. That the
Commander, however, took a handkerchief and attempted to show his guest
the mysteries of the SEMICUACUA, capering in an agile but indecorous
manner about the apartment, has been denied. Enough for the purposes of
this narrative that at midnight Peleg assisted his host to bed with many
protestations of undying friendship, and then, as the gale had abated,
took his leave of the Presidio and hurried aboard the GENERAL COURT.
When the day broke the ship was gone.

I know not if Peleg kept his word with his host. It is said that the
holy fathers at the Mission that night heard a loud chanting in the
plaza, as of the heathens singing psalms through their noses; that for
many days after an odor of salt codfish prevailed in the settlement;
that a dozen hard nutmegs, which were unfit for spice or seed, were