Zuniga began his story in his usual eccentric manner:
“Esteemed son-in-law and beloved daughter! That little personal pronoun, in the first person singular, nominative case, is such a very obtrusive person, that it should be suppressed on every possible occasion. This autobiography, or fragment of autobiography, then, shall be delivered in the third person, with your consent. What do you say?”
Zuniga paused for a reply.
“As you like, señor,” gravely responded Hereward.
“Yes, do, please,” assented Lilith.
Zuniga proceeded:
“About thirty-five years ago——Now don’t throw yourself back in your chair with such a look of anticipated weariness, Hereward. Have more respect for your venerable father-in-law, and set a better example to my daughter, or I shall ‘set’ a mother-in-law over your head, or, rather, a step-mother-in-law, which must be a combination of domestic autocracy. Besides, the story is not so long as the time.
“Well, about thirty-five years ago, the good ship Polly Ann, of Glasgow, Swift, master, bound for New York, when about half way across, sighted a nondescript object, which, on nearer view and closer inspection, proved to be a raft, on which languished a half-dead shipwrecked sailor, and a three-quarters dead shipwrecked child.
“The victims were rescued, taken on board the Polly Ann, and restored by such simple and efficacious treatment as was familiar to the skipper and his crew as specifics ‘for such cases made and provided.’
“The sailor was a man of about fifty winters; the child, a boy of three summers—though why the winters should always be enumerated for the old, and the summers for the young, is more than I can understand, since both young and old have an equal distribution of summers and winters in their years. But this is a digression.