“He gave some to Kast the last time he dined here,” observed a languid and rather elegant elderly man, who occupied the fourth side of the table. “Mine host didn’t like it.” 

 “I should suppose Señor Kast would be hardened,” remarked the young Caracuñan who had defended the absent. 

 “Our eyeglassed friend scored for once, though. They had just served him the usual table-d’hôte salad—you know, two leaves of lettuce with a caterpillar on one. Kast happened to be passing. Our friend beckoned him over. ‘A little less of the fauna and more of the flora, Señor Kast,’ said he in that gritty, scientific voice of his. I really thought Kast was going to forget his Swiss blood, and chase a whole peso of custom right out of the place.” 

 “If you ask me, I think the blighter is barmy,” asserted the Briton. 

 “Well, I’ll ask you,” proffered the elegant one kindly. “Why do you consider him ‘barmy,’ as you put it?” 

 “When I first saw him here and heard him speak to the waiter, I knew him for an American Johnny at once, and I went, directly I’d finished my soup, and sat down at his table. The friendly touch, y’ know. ‘I say,’ I said to him, ‘I don’t know you, but I heard you speak, and I knew at once you were one of these Americans—tell you at once by the beastly queer accent, you know. You are an American, ay—wot?’ Wot d’ you suppose the blighter said? He said, ‘No, I’m an ichthyo’—somethin’ or other—” 

 “Ichthyosaurus, perhaps,” supplied the Caracunuan, smiling. 

 “That’s it, whatever it may be. ‘I’m an ichthyosaurus,’ he says. ‘It’s a very old family, but most of the buttons are off. Were you ever bitten by one in the fossil state? Very exhilaratin’, but poisonous,’ he says. ‘So don’t let me keep you any longer from your dinner.’ Of course, I saw then that he was a wrong un, so I cut him dead, and walked away.” 

 “Served him right,” declared the elderly American, with a solemn twinkle directed at the tall brown man, who, having opened his mouth, now thought better of it, and closed it again, with a grin. 

 “But he is very kind,” said the native. “When my brother fell and broke his arm on the mountain, this gentleman found him, took care of him, and brought him in on muleback.” 

 “Lives up there somewhere, doesn’t he, Mr. Raimonda?” asked the big man. 

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