A CLERICAL ODDITY. 



181 



our way down ; by degrees his laugh became infec- 

 tious, and when we met we all laughed together. All 

 at once he stopped, looked very solemn, pulled off his 

 neckcloth, and wiped the perspiration from his face, 

 took out a paper of cigars, laughed, thrust them back, 

 pulled out another, as he said, of Habaneras, and asked 

 what was the news from Spain. 



Our friend's dress was as unclerical as his manner, 

 viz., a broad-brimmed black glazed hat, an old black 

 coat reaching to his heels, glossy from long use, and 

 pantaloons to match ; a striped roundabout, a waistcoat, 

 flannel shirt, and under it a cotton one, perhaps wash- 

 ed when he shaved last, some weeks before. He 

 laughed at our coming to see the ruins, and said that 

 he laughed prodigiously himself when he first saw them. 

 He was from Old Spain ; had seen the battle of Trafal- 

 gar, looking on from the heights on shore, and laughed 

 whenever he thought of it ; the French fleet was blown 

 sky high, and the Spanish went with it ; Lord Nelson 

 was killed — all for glory — he could not help laughing. 

 He had left Spain to get rid of wars and revolutions : 

 here we all laughed ; sailed with twenty Dominican 

 friars ; was fired upon and chased into Jamaica by a 

 French cruiser : here we laughed again ; got an Eng- 

 lish convoy to Omoa, where he arrived at the breaking 

 out of a revolution ; had been all his life in the midst 

 of revolutions, and it was now better than ever. Here 

 we all laughed incontinently. His own laugh was so 

 rich and expressive that it was perfectly irresistible. 

 In fact, we were not disposed to resist, and in half an 

 hour we were as intimate as if acquainted for years. 

 The world was our butt, and we laughed at it outra- 

 geously. Except the Church, there were few things 

 which the cura did not laugh at ; but politics was his fa- 



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