My father does not want me to show myself on horseback in public
until I am able to astonish every one by my fine appearance in the
saddle, as he says. If the vanity natural to a father does not deceive
him, this, it seems, will be very soon, for I have a wonderful aptitude
for riding.

"It is easy to see that you are my son!" my father exclaims with joy, as
he watches my progress.

My father is so good that I hope you will pardon him the profane
language and irreverent jests in which he indulges at times. I grieve
for this at the bottom of my soul, but I endure it with patience. These
constant and long-continued lessons have reduced me to a pitiable
condition with blisters. My father enjoins me to write to you that they
are caused by my flagellations.

As he declares that within a few weeks I shall be an accomplished
horseman, and he does not desire to be superannuated as a master, he
proposes to teach me other accomplishments of a somewhat irregular
character, and sufficiently unsuited to a future priest. At times he
proposes to train me in throwing the bull in order that he may take me
afterward to Seville, where, with lance in hand, on the plains of
Tablada, I shall make the braggarts and the bullies stare. Then he
recalls his own youthful days, when he belonged to the body-guard, and
declares that he will look up his foils, gloves, and masks, and teach me
to fence. And, finally, as my father flatters himself that he can wield
the Sevillian knife better than any one else, he has offered to teach me
even this accomplishment also.

You can already imagine the answer I make to all this nonsense. My
father replies that, in the good old times, not only the priests but
even the bishops themselves rode about the country on horseback, putting
infidels to the sword. I rejoin that this might happen in the dark ages,
but that in our days the ministers of the Most High should know how to
wield no other weapons than those of persuasion. "And what if persuasion
be not enough?" rejoins my father. "Do you think it would be amiss to
re-enforce argument with a few good blows of a cudgel?" The complete
missionary, according to my father's opinion, should know how, on
occasion, to have recourse to these heroic measures, and, as my father
has read a great many tales and romances, he cites various examples in
support of his opinion. He cites in the first place St. James, who, on
his white horse, without ceasing to be an apostle, put