languid interest and nodded comprehension.

"My wife, Carolina, she tell me same thing all time. She say: '_Pablo
mio_, somebody make beeg mistake. Don Mike come home pretty queeck,
you see. Nobody can keel Don Mike. Nobody have that mean the
deesposition for keel the boy.' But I don' theenk Don Mike come back
to El Palomar."

"Carolina is right, Pablo. Somebody did make a big mistake. He was
wounded in the hand, but not killed. I saw him to-day, Pablo, on the
train."

"You see Don Mike? You see heem with the eye?"

"Yes. And he spoke to me with the tongue. He will arrive here in an
hour."

Pablo was on his knees before her, groping for her hand. Finding it,
he carried it to his lips. Then, leaping to his feet with an alacrity
that belied his years, he yelled:

"Carolina! Come queeck, _Pronto_! _Aqui_, Carolina."

"_Si, Pablo mio_."

Carolina appeared in the doorway and was literally deluged with a
stream of Spanish. She stood there, hands clasped on her tremendous
bosom, staring unbelievingly at the bearer of these tidings of great
joy, the while tears cascaded down her flat, homely face. With a snap
of his fingers, Pablo dismissed her; then he darted into the house and
emerged with his rifle. A cockerel, with the carelessness of youth,
had selected for his roost the limb of an adjacent oak and was still
gazing about him instead of secreting his head under his wing, as
cockerels should at sunset. Pablo neatly shot his head off, seized the
fluttering carcass, and started plucking out the feathers with neatness
and despatch.

"Don Mike, he's like _gallina con arroz espagnol_," he explained.
"What you, call chick-een with rice Spanish," he interpreted. "Eet
mus' not be that Don Mike come home and Carolina have not cook for heem
the grub he like. _Carramba_!"

"But he cannot possibly eat a chicken before--I mean, it's too soon.
Don Mike will not eat that chicken before the animal-heat is out of it."

"You don' know Don Mike, mees. Wen dat boy he's hongry, he don' speak
so many questions."

"But I've told our cook to save dinner for him."'

"Your cook! _Senorita_, I don' like make fun for you, but I guess you
don' know my wife Carolina, she have been cook for Don Miguel and Don
Mike since long time before he's beeg like little kitten. Don Mike, he
don' understand those gringo grub."

"Listen, Pablo: There is no time to cook Don Mike a Spanish dinner. He
must eat gringo grub to-nig