s a little too much for the pony; so it was at a
dignified walk that the Maestro, his naked, dripping, muddy and still
defiant prisoner a-straddle in front of him, the captured kite passed
over his left arm like a knightly shield, made his triumphant entry into
the pueblo.

_II--Heroism and Reverses_

When Maestro Pablo rode down Rizal-y-Washington Street to the
schoolhouse with his oozing, dripping prize between his arms, the kite,
like a knightly escutcheon against his left side, he found that in spite
of his efforts at preserving a modest, self-deprecatory bearing, his
spine would stiffen and his nose point upward in the unconscious
manifestations of an internal feeling that there was in his attitude
something picturesquely heroic. Not since walking down the California
campus one morning after the big game won three minutes before blowing
of the final whistle, by his fifty-yard run-in of a punt, had he been
in that posture--at once pleasant and difficult--in which one's vital
concern is to wear an humility sufficiently convincing to obtain from
friends forgiveness for the crime of being great.

A series of incidents immediately following, however, made the thing
quite easy.

Upon bringing the new recruit into the schoolhouse, to the perfidiously
expressed delight of the already incorporated, the Maestro called his
native assistant to obtain the information necessary to a full
matriculation. At the first question the inquisition came to a
dead-lock. The boy did not know his name.

"In Spanish times," the Assistant suggested modestly, "we called them
"de los Reyes" when the father was of the army, and "de la Cruz" when
the father was of the church; but now, we can never know _what_ it is."

The Maestro dashed to a solution. "All right," he said cheerily. "I
caught him; guess I can give him a name. Call him--Isidro de los
Maestros."

And thus it was that the urchin went down on the school records, and on
the records of life afterward.

Now, well pleased with himself, the Maestro, as is the wont of men in
such state, sought for further enjoyment.

"Ask him," he said teasingly, pointing with his chin at the
newly-baptized but still unregenerate little savage, "why he came out of
the ditch."

"He says he was afraid that you would steal the kite," answered the
Assistant, after some linguistic sparring.

"Eh?" ejaculated the surprised Maestro.

And in his mind there framed a picture of himself riding along