Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/133

 doctor on the stage, and an acquaintance of his had fallen in love with his wife, and put a note in her work-basket by way of telling her so. The note was conveyed to the husband, who, instead of shooting the imprudent writer, took occasion presently to assume a look of horror, and pretend that the latter had gone blind. Before the Lothario could protest, a bandage was clapped over his eyes, medicaments given to make him believe in his own misfortune, and he was put under a course of onerous treatment. After a series of absurd situations he was finally released, persuaded by degrees that he was cured. The patient raised the bandage. ''"Veo! veo!" —''"I see!"— he exclaimed, in wild delight.

"Very well, then—see that!" said the husband, thrusting the offending letter under his nose. This was amusing enough, but I was quite as much amused all the time with the studious efforts of a companion who had come with me —the French engineer sent out to examine mines, before mentioned— who proposed to turn the theatre into a school of languages. He grasped at every word a semblance of which he seemed to catch, and dived for verifications of it into his grammar and dictionary. He resented in his ambition any interpretation of passages which he did not himself originate, and constructed such a theory of the play as its author would by no means have recognized. When the dénouement came, in the bold "Veo!" he seized upon it with avidity.

"'Veo,' cèst bien trouvé ça—'veo,'" he said, reflectively, digesting it at his leisure. "Je vais le retenir ce 'veo;' vous-allez voir"

And so he did, and proceeded to use it vigorously, in the restaurants and the like on the following day.