ot even that stern disciplinarian was able to kick
any obedience into him. Then he tried his hand at coopering, the
steadiest of all trades; but his boss bounced him to the sidewalk in a
very few days. Then he joined a stevedore's _colla_ in town; but he
never worked unloading the steamers more than two days a week, and that
much quite against his will.

But his many shortcomings as vagrant and rowdy found easy excuse in
_sina_ Tona's eyes, when she would see him of a holiday--and what days
were not holidays for that rascal?--with that fluffy flat silk cap of
his topping off a brown face with just the suggestion of a mustache
showing, a blue denim coat fitting close to his figure, and a black silk
sash wound around his waist over a flannel shirt with black and green
checks. Any woman would be proud to own a boy like that! He was going to
be another terror on the lines of that Martinez--curse the wretch--but
with more "seasoning," more get-up-and-go, to him. To be sure of that,
it was enough to watch the girls in the Cabanal when he was around. They
would be willing to scratch each other's eyes out to get him for a
lover! Tona was kept posted on all his adventures, and was immensely
flattered at the boy's popularity and "social position." A bit too fond
of brandy, yes--and what a pity!--but a regular fellow, quite different
from that big good-natured booby of a Pascualet, who wouldn't say a word
if a cart ran over him.

One Sunday evening in a tavern appositely labeled the "Inn of Good
Morals," he began to throw bottles at some stevedores who had accepted a
cut in wages; and when the police came in to restore order, they caught
him, red-handed, chasing his enemies over the tops of the tables with
his knife drawn. More than one week-end he spent in the jail at
headquarters whence his mother's tears and the "pull" _tio_ Mariano had
as a politician and distributor of election money, would finally
extricate him. And arrest proved so salutary to him that on the very
night of one of his discharges he was taken again for drawing a knife on
two English sailors, who, after a number of treats, tried to explain
some of the details of the Marquis of Queensbury rules to him. Not much
good at drudgery, but able to drink anybody under the table, and do it
night after night, passing from dive to dive, and not showing his face
at home for weeks at a time!

Tonet had an intimate way of conducting his more serious love-affairs
that made