!"

"Oh! you needn't deny, or look so demure about it. Well, you're a lucky
fellow to be the lady killer I've heard say you are."

"Your Excellency, that's only say-say; I ought rather to call it
slander. I've no ambition to be thought such a character. Quite the
reverse, I assure you."

"If you could assure me, but you can't. I've had you long enough under
my eye to know better. Haven't I observed your little flirtations with
quite half a score of our senoritas, among them a very charming young
lady you met in Louisiana, if I mistake not?"

Saying this, he fixed his eyes on Santander's face in a searching,
interrogative way, as though he himself felt more than a common interest
in the charming young lady who had been met in Louisiana.

Avoiding his glance, as evading the question, the other rejoined--

"It is very good of your Excellency to take such interest in me, and I'm
grateful. But I protest--"

"Come, come! _amigo mio_! No protestations. 'Twould only be adding
perjury to profligacy. Ha, ha, ha!"

And the grand dignitary leaned back in his chair, laughing. For it was
but badinage, and he in no way intended lecturing the staff-colonel on
his morality, nor rebuking him for any backslidings. Instead, what came
after could but encourage him in such wise, his chief continuing--

"Yes, Senor Don Carlos, I'm aware of your _amourettes_, for which I'm
not the man to be hard upon you. In that regard, I myself get the
credit--so rumour says--of living in a glass house, so I cannot safely
throw stones. Ha, ha!"

The tone of his laugh, with his self-satisfied look, told of his being
aught but angry with rumour for so representing him.

"Well, Excellentissimo," here put in the subordinate, "it don't much
signify what the world says, so long as one's conscience is clear."

"_Bravo--bravissimo_!" exclaimed the Most Excellent. "Ha, ha, ha!" he
continued, in still louder cachinnation. "Carlos Santander turned
moralist! And moralising to me! It's enough to make a horse laugh.
Ha, ha, ha!"

The staff-colonel appeared somewhat disconcerted, not knowing to what
all this might be tending. However, he ventured to remark--

"I am glad to find your Excellency in such good humour this morning."

"Ah! that's because you've come to ask some favour from me, I suppose."
Santa Anna had a habit of interlarding his most familiar and friendly
discourse with a little satire, sometimes very disagreeable to those he