At first it
surprises him; then he thinks there might be something in it; and
then maybe he gets so waterlogged and cosmopolitan as to admit an
oyster's notions might be as reasonable as his.
As near as I could come to it the keeper was a Spaniard of a run-down
family,--at least one branch of it was run down to him. It was old
and uncommon proud, and had different kinds of decorated names.
It began with being a legend; then it seemed to have a deal of
trouble with Moors, and got rich with the results of trouble; then it
owned some of that section of the New World, including twenty to
thirty thousand natives in the property. That was the story of the
family. But what they had they spent, or lost, or had confiscated,
till there was nothing much but the story. Now here's what surprised
me. For the thought of his race was in his bones, same as the sea is
in mine. For instance, it seems to me I'm more to the point than my
ancestors, on account of being alive. I don't much know who they
were. I'm a separate island, with maybe a few other islands, close
by. My continental connections appear to be sort of submerged. That's
the average American way of looking at it, and he wants to be a
credit to himself, if he does to anybody.
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