ll right. Then I tol' to you what those boy peench--weeth hees thumb
an' thees fingair. _Mira_. Like thees."

"Cut out the pantomime and disgorge the information, for the love of
heaven," Parker pleaded.

"He peench"--Pablo's voice rose to a pseudo-feminine screech--"the
cheek of"--he whirled upon Mrs. Parker and transfixed her with a
tobacco-stained index finger--"Senorita Parker, so help me, by Jimmy,
eef I tell you some lies I hope I die pretty queeck."

Both the Parkers stared at the old man blankly. He continued:

"He peench--queeck--like that. He don' know hee's goin' for
peench--hees all time queeck like that--he don' theenk. But after
those boy hee's peench the cheen of those girl, hee's got red in the
face like black-bird's weeng. 'Oh,' he say, 'I am sky-blue eedete-ot,'
an' he run away queeck before he forget heemself an' peench those girl
some more."

John Parker turned gravely to his wife. "Old hon," he murmured softly,
"Don Mike Farrel is a pinch-bug. He pinched Kay's chin during a mental
lapse; then he remembered he was still under my thumb and he cursed
himself for a sky-blue idiot."

"Oh, John, dear, I'm so glad." There were tears in Mrs. Parker's eyes.
"Aren't you, John?"

"No, I'm not," he replied savagely. "I think it's an outrage and I'd
speak to Farrel about it if it were not apparent nobody realizes more
keenly than does he the utter impossibility of permitting his fancy to
wander in that direction."

"John Parker, you're a hard-hearted man," she cried, and left him in
high dudgeon, to disappear into the garden. As the gate closed behind
her, John Parker drew forth his pocket book and abstracted from it a
hundred-dollar bill, which he handed to Pablo Artelan.

"We have had our little differences, Pablo," he informed that astounded
individual, "but we're gradually working around toward a true spirit of
brotherly love. In the language of the classic, Pablo, I'm here to
tell the cock-eyed world that you're one good Indian."

Pablo swept his old _sombrero_ to the ground, "_Gracias, _senor_, mille
gracias_," he murmured, and shuffled away with his prize.

Verily, the ways of this Gringo were many and mysterious. To-day one
hated him; to-morrow--

"There is no doubt about it," Pablo soliloquized, "it is better to be
the head of a mouse than the tail of a lion!"

CHAPTER XXX

The following day Don Mike, Pablo and the latter's male relatives, who
had so mysteriously ap