“O, most!” said I. “And particularly from the point of view of the children’s return to you for your dislike of them.”
“Well, as to that,” said the Regius Professor, rather shamefacedly, “I wasn’t beyond acknowledging a certain indebtedness.”
“Acknowledging? How?”
“Why, I happened to have in my knapsack one of my pamphlets on the Reef-building Serpulæ; so I went back to the school, and gave it to the mistress to include in her curriculum.”
ARCADES AMBO
Miguel and Nicanor were the Damon and Phintias of Lima. Their devotion to one another, in a city of gamblers—who are not, as a rule, very wont to sentimental and disinterested friendships—was a standing pleasantry. The children of rich Peruvian neighbours, they had grown up together, passed their school-days together (at an English Catholic seminary), and were at last, in the dawn of their young manhood, to make the “grand tour” in each other’s company, preparatory to their entering upon the serious business of life, which was to pile wealth on wealth in their respective fathers’ offices.
In the meanwhile, awaiting a prosaic destiny, they continued inseparable—a proverb for clean though passionate affection.
The strange thing was that, in the matters of temperament and physique, they appeared to have nothing in common. Nicanor, the younger by a few months, was a little dark, curly-haired creature, bright-eyed as a mouse. He was, in fact, almost a dwarf, and with all the wit, excitability, and vivaciousness which one is inclined to associate with elfishness. At the same time he was perfectly formed—a man in miniature, a little sheath crammed with a big dagger.
Miguel, on the other hand, was large and placid, a smooth, slumberous faun of a youth, smiling and good-natured. He never said anything fine; he never did anything noteworthy; he was not so much admirable as lovable.
The two started, well-equipped in every way, on their tour. The flocks of buzzards, which are the scavengers of Lima, flapped them good-bye with approval. They were too sweetening an element to be popular with the birds.