The wisp of straw hardly tallied with poesy of soul, nor did the lank figure and lean face, nor the cavalry uniform, badly worn, though lately new, nor yet the sagging belt with dragoon pistols. But the eyes did. Those eyes held the eloquence of the youth of a race. They were gentle, or they flashed, according to what passed within. It did not matter necessarily what might be going on without. They would as likely dart sparks during prayer meeting, or soften as a lover's mid the charge on a battery. Shaggy moustached Daniel, not yet thirty, was a scholar too, of the true old school, where dead languages lived to consort familiarly with men, and neither had to be buried out of the world because of the comradeship. Once, in Pompeii, Daniel blundered suddenly on that mosaic doormat which bears the warning, "Cave canem"; and before he thought, he glanced anxiously around, half expecting a dog that could have barked at Saint Peter himself. From which it appears that the editor had traveled, and it would not be long in also appearing that he had gathered enough of polite and variegated learning to fill a warehouse, in which junk-shop he was constantly rummaging, and bringing forth queer specimens of speech wherewith to flower his inspirations.
Streaming back and forth before the shops in lively Plateros street were elegance and fashion and display, the languishing beauty of Spain, the brilliancy of the Second Empire, the Teuton's martial strutting, the Mexican's elation that Europe had come to him and with the money to pay for it. The toughened Boone gazed on the bright morning parade of ravishing shoppers and ogling cavaliers with the unterrified innocence of a child, or of an American. He had the air of doing nothing, such as only a newspaper man can have when really at work. He did not look as though he were waiting for some one. But only a half-hour before he had gotten from the saddle. He had just ridden four hundred and fifty miles for the express purpose of waiting for someone now.
Finally the keen, lazy eyes singled out an immense yellow horse and rider from among the luxurious turnouts. "Jack!" he exclaimed gladly. "The Storm Centre," he improvised, as the new comer approached, "straight as Tecumseh, a great bronzed Ajax, mighty thewed, as strong of hand as of digestion--w'y, bless my soul, the boy looks pow'ful dejected, knocked plum' galley-west! I never saw him look like that before."