SIMPSON, MYSELF AND THE PERSONAGE. 105 



The Personage led the way into the street, and 

 we followed. We passed on together along a 

 thoroughfare crowded with Chilian merrymakers. 

 Here an organ grinder had gathered a motley 

 crowd of listeners. Yonder a man and a woman, 

 both, peones, were dancing the zamacueca. Leisure- 

 ly throngs strolled by on their way to the 

 bull-fight. Now and then a pretty senorita 

 peered out at us through a grated window 

 piercing some stout adobe wall. 



Spanish was spoken on every hand. Rudder 

 and I enjoyed the novelty of the situation. It 

 was a great thing to have a notable personage to 

 serve as guide and guardian, as we roamed through 

 that old, white-walled, red- tiled Chilian town. 



We came at last to a sort of cheap inn, or 

 posada, entering which, we crossed the enclosed 

 patio and found ourselves in the bowling alley. 



Here the Personage bargained with the sallow, 

 round-shouldered, little proprietor, and explained 

 to Rudder the terms of the agreement. It was 

 simplicity itself. The loser of the game was to 

 pay for the use of the alley. 



Then the game began. The Personage threw off 

 his emerald-hued poncho and gave it to me to hold. 



With a magnificent wave of his patrician hand, 

 he said to me, " You, senor, pick up ze nine-pinza!" 



