e,
`Kurnel, I's come to say farewell. I would not t'ink ob asking your
consent to such a marriage, but I do ask you to hold out de hope dat if
I ebber comes back agin wid a kumpitincy, (don' know 'zactly what dat
is, but dat's what he called it)--wid a kumpitincy, you'll not forbid me
payin' my 'dresses to your darter.' What he wants to pay her dresses
for, an' why he calls dem _his_ dresses, is more nor I can guess, but
das what he say, an' de kurnel he says, says he, `No, Mis'r Amstrung,
I'll not hold out no sich hope. It's time enough to speak ob dat when
you comes back. It's bery kind ob you to sabe my darter's life, but--'
an' den he says a heap more, but I cou'n't make it rightly out, I _was_
so mad."

"When dey was partin', he says, says he, `Mis'r Amstrung, you mus'
promise me not to 'tempt to meet my darter before leaving.' I know'd,
by de long silence and den by de way he speak dat Massa Lawrence no like
dat, but at last he says, says he, `Well, kurnel, I do promise dat I'll
make no 'tempt to meet wid her,' an' den he hoed away. Now, Quashy,
what you t'ink ob all dat?"

"I t'ink it am a puzzler," replied the negro, his face twisted up into
wrinkles of perplexity. "I's puzzled to hear dat massa tell a big lie
by sayin' he's a beggar, an' den _show_ dat it's a lie by offerin' to
pay for de kurnel's darter's dresses. It's koorious, but white folk
_has_ sitch koorious ways dat it's not easy to understan' dem. Let's be
t'ankful, Sooz'n, you an' me, that we're bof black."

"So I is, Quash, bery t'ankful, but what's to be dooed? Is massa to go
away widout sayin' good-bye to Miss Manuela?"

"Cer'nly not," cried the negro, with sudden energy, seizing his wife's
face between his hands, and giving her lips a smack that resounded over
the place--to the immense delight of several little Gaucho boys, who,
clothed in nothing but ponchos and pugnacity, stood gazing at the
couple.

Quashy jumped up with such violence that the boys in ponchos fled as he
hurried along the street with his bride, earnestly explaining to her as
he went, his new-born plans.

At the same moment that this conversation was taking place, Lawrence
Armstrong and Pedro--_alias_ Conrad of the Mountains--were holding
equally interesting and perhaps more earnest converse over two pots of
coffee in a restaurant.

"I have already told you, senhor," said Pedro, "that old Ignacio
followed us thus hotly, and overtook us as it happened so opportu