pudence to offer him
one day when his mother was having a nap.

The angry expression of his face and the screams with which he received
the proposition gave no room for doubt; he would have preferred to die
of hunger rather than run the risk of spoiling his digestion by such
unsubstantial and harmful concoctions.

But the thing in which he best showed his practical talent, as well as
the perfection of his character, was in sleeping. As soon as he was born
he made up his mind that he was going to sleep twenty hours a day at the
very least; all that was done to dissuade him from this intention was in
vain; apparently he had weighty physiological reasons for carrying it
out. When unfortunately any attention to him or attempt to keep him
awake disturbed his plan, he would raise his voice to heaven, and the
house in commotion.

Miguel would be the first to run to his aid, would take him in his arms
and begin to walk up and down the corridors furiously, with the
expectation--deluded man!--of putting him to sleep in that manner. The
infant kept protesting more and more obstreperously against any such
unsatisfactory method; the father would grow nervous after some time,
and lest he should "dash him against the wall," he would turn him over
to Juana's secular arm, but she rarely, also, had the good fortune to
calm him. It was necessary to hand him over to his mother, who possessed
in her beautiful and bounteous bosom the secret of putting to flight all
his gloomy thoughts and making him see the world through rose-colored
spectacles.

"But is this little monster always going to look to his mamma for his
food?" asked Miguel, anxiously.

Maximina smiled, and shrugged her shoulders, and gave her son a kiss, as
if to say that she was ready to give a thousand lives for him.

But when it was least expected, Juana, rich in contrivances like
Ulysses, found one which, for its novelty and efficacy, left all others
far behind.

And like the majority of fertile and wonderful inventions it had the
additional merit of being simple. It consisted in holding the child in
her arms with its mouth up, and dandling him up and down gently, and
singing in rhythmic motion a certain melody.

We have always been desirous that great inventions with results of
practical use to humanity should be spread abroad as soon as possible.
Consequently, we shall not have the selfishness to hide this most
original as well as simple expedient, which possibly