in the orthodox
way. In order to increase the excitement and confusion of the game, the
playful lady invents noms de guerre for some of the numbers. Number one
is by her transformed into 'el unico' (the only one); number two, when
drawn, is termed 'el par dichoso' (the happy pair); and number three,
'las Gracias' (the Graces). Similarly, number fifteen becomes 'la nina
bonita' (the pretty girl); number thirty-two, 'la edad de Cristo,' and
so on up to number sixty-nine, which she describes as 'el arriba para
abajo' (the upside down number). All the tens she gives in their
numerical form, coupled with the creolised adjective 'pelao,' or shaven,
because the ciphers in these numbers are thought to resemble a bald
head.

When 'Loteria!' has been at last shouted by a successful winner, loto is
abandoned, and cards, in which the gentlemen take the lead, are
substituted. Don Benigno proposes the exciting and speculative game of
monte, and all the ready cash of the company is forthwith exhibited on
the table. Long after the children and ladies have retired, the males of
our party continue to gamble over this fascinating game.

While we are finishing our last round but six, a slave enters the broad
airy balcony where we are assembled, and approaching our host, whispers
mysteriously in his ear. Don Benigno directs a look at my companion and
me, and observes, with a smile, 'Senores artistas, your models have
arrived.'

True to his word, Don Felipe has dispatched our swarthy models that same
evening, so as to be in readiness for to-morrow's pictorial operations,
and the good-natured coffee-planter begs as a personal favour to
himself, that we will return his property not later than the day after
to-morrow.

CHAPTER XXI.

LOVE-MAKING IN THE TROPICS.

My Inamorata--Clandestine Courtship--A Love Scene--'Il Bacio' in
Cuba--The Course of True Love--A Stern Parent.

I am in love. The object of my affection is, I need scarcely explain,
the fair Cachita, who lives in the heart of sunny Santiago. She has the
blackest of bright eyes, a profusion of dark, frizzled hair, with
eyebrows and lashes to match. It is universally admitted that the
complexion of my inamorata is fair for a daughter of the tropics, but
truth compels me to state that in one sense Cachita is not so white as
she is painted. During the day she plasters her delicate skin with
'cascarilla:' a chalky composition of powdered egg-shell and rum. This
sh