there is something besides mountains and water,
grain fields, orchards, forests, earthquakes, and
climate? Will you, senor?"

"For quite as many hours as you will listen to
me. I propose a compact. You shall improve my
Spanish. I will impart all I know of Europe--
and of Asia--if your curiosity reaches that far."

"Even of Japan?" There was a wicked spark
in her eye.

"I see you already have some knowledge of the
cause of my delay." His voice was even, but a
wound smarted. "It is quite true, senorita, that
the first embassy to Japan, from which we hoped
so much, was a humiliating failure, and that I was
played with for six months by a people whom we
had regarded as a nation of monkeys. When my
health began to suffer from the long confinement
on shipboard--we had previously been fourteen
months at sea--and I asked to be permitted to
live on shore while my claims to an audience were
under consideration, I was removed with my suite
to a cage on a strip of land nearly surrounded with
water, where I had less liberty and exercise than on
shipboard. Finally, I had a ridiculous interview
with a 'great man,' in which I accomplished nothing
but the preservation of what personal dignity a man
may while sitting on his heels; the superb presents