have to do _this_. But I don't complain. If I hadn't got a bullet in me,
I should do pretty well."

"Then you were in the war?" I said.

"Oh, yes, yes, sir! I was in the Confederate service. Yes, sir, I'm a
Southerner to the backbone. My grandfather was a ----" (I missed the
patronymic), "and commanded St. Augustine."

The name had a foreign sound, and the man's complexion was swarthy, and
in all simplicity I asked if he was a Minorcan. I might as well have
touched a lighted match to powder. His eyes flashed, and he came round
the tail of the cart, gesticulating with his stick.

"Minorcan!" he broke out. "Spain and the island of Minorca are two
places, ain't they?" I admitted meekly that they were.

"You are English, ain't you?" he went on. "You are English,--Yankee
born,--ain't you?"

I owned it.

"Well, I'm Spanish. That ain't Minorcan. My grandfather was a ----, and
commanded St. Augustine. He couldn't have done that if he had been
Minorcan."

By this time he was quieting down a bit. His father remembered the
Indian war. The son had heard him tell about it.

"Those were dangerous times," he remarked. "You couldn't have been