His name was really Perez Armando Aldeano, but in the end everybody called him the amigo, because that was the endearing term by which he saluted¹ all the world. There was a time when the children called him "Span-yard" in their games, for he spoke² no tongue but Spanish, and though he came from Ecuador, and was no more a Spaniard than they were English, he answered to the call of "Span-yard!" whenever he heard it. He came eagerly in the hope of fun, and all the more eagerly if there was a hope of mischief³ in the fun. Still, to discerning spirits, he was always the amigo, for, when he hailed you so, you could not help hailing him so again, and whatever mock he put upon you afterward⁴, you were his secret and inalienable friend.

 

The moment of my own acceptance in this quality came in the first hours of expansion following our getting to sea after long detention⁵ in [Pg 162]the dock by fog. A small figure came flying down the dock with outspread arms, and a joyful⁶ cry of "Ah, amigo!" as if we were now meeting unexpectedly after a former intimacy⁷ in Bogotá; and the amigo clasped me round the middle to his bosom⁸, or more strictly⁹ speaking, his brow, which he plunged¹⁰ into my waistcoat. He was clad in a long black overcoat, and a boy's knee-pants, and under the peak of his cap twinkled the merriest black eyes that ever lighted up a smiling face of olive hue¹¹. Thereafter, he was more and more, with the thinness of his small black legs, and his habit of

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