"That's another thing you can tell a gentleman by--his freakishness.
A gentleman ain't accountable to nobody, any more than a tramp on the
roads. He ain't got to keep time. The governor got like this once in a
one-horse Mexican pueblo on the uplands, away from everywhere. He lay
all day long in a dark room--"
"Drunk?" This word escaped Schomberg by inadvertence at which he became
frightened. But the devoted secretary seemed to find it natural.
"No, that never comes on together with this kind of fit. He just lay
there full length on a mat, while a ragged, bare-legged boy that he had
picked up in the street sat in the patio, between two oleanders near the
open door of his room, strumming on a guitar and singing tristes to him
from morning to night. You know tristes--twang, twang, twang, aouh, hoo!
Chroo, yah!"
Schomberg uplifted his hands in distress. This tribute seemed to flatter
Ricardo. His mouth twitched grimly.
"Like that--enough to give colic to an ostrich, eh? Awful. Well, there
was a cook there who loved me--an old fat, Negro woman with spectacles.
I used to hide in the kitchen and turn her to, to make me dulces--sweet
things, you know, mostly eggs and sugar--to pass the time away. I am
like a kid for sweet things. And, by the way, why don't you ever have
a pudding at your tablydott, Mr. Schomberg? Nothing but fruit, morning,
noon, and night.
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