e remembrance of sour-sop. She
is the business-man of the party; and while philosophy and highest
considerations occupy the others, with an occasional squabble over
virtue and the rights of man, she changes lodgings, hires carts,
transports baggage, and, knowing half-a-dozen words of Spanish, makes
herself clearly comprehensible to everybody. We have found a Spanish
steamer for Can Grande; but she rows thither in a boat and secures his
passage and state-room. The noontide sun is hot upon the waters, but her
zeal is hotter still. Now she has made a curious bargain with her
boatmen, by which they are to convey the whole party to the steamer on
the fourth day.

"What did you tell them?" we asked.

"I said, _tres noches_ (three nights) and _un dia_, (one day,) and then
took out my watch and showed them five o'clock on it, and pointed to the
boat and to myself. They understood, perfectly."

And so, in truth, they did; for, going to the wharf on the day and at
the hour appointed, we found the boatmen in waiting, with eager faces.
But here a new difficulty presented itself;--the runner of our hotel, a
rascal German, whose Cuban life has sharpened his wits and blunted his
conscience, insisted that the hiring of boats for the lodgers was one of
his (many) perquisites, and that before his sovereign prerogative all
other agreements were null and void.--N.B. There was always something
experimentative about this man's wickedness. He felt that he did not
know how far men might be gulled, or the point where they would be
likely to resist. This was a fault of youth. With increasing years and
experience he will become bolder and more skilful, and bids fair, we
should say, to become one of the most dexterous operators known in his
peculiar line. On the present occasion, he did not heed the piteous
pleadings of the disappointed boatmen, nor Sobrina's explanations, nor
Can Grande's arguments. But when the whole five of us fixed upon him our
mild and scornful eyes, something within him gave way. He felt a little
bit of the moral pressure of Boston, and feebly broke down, saying, "You
better do as you like, then," and so the point was carried.

A pleasant run brought us to the side of the steamer. It was dusk
already as we ascended her steep gangway, and from that to darkness
there is, at this season, but the interval of a breath. Dusk, too, were
our thoughts, at parting from Can Grande, the mighty, the vehement, the
great fighter. How w