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290 our game, seemed, like myself, to be quite out of humor. He rode, as all the Jarochos do, with his body inclined more to one side of the saddle than the other. His horse shuffled slowly along, and every now and then he held up his fist to the skies in all the fury of passion. Delighted that chance had sent me a companion in misfortune, I wished to offer him my hearty condolence, and succeeded in that design beyond my expectation. Scarcely had I managed, by dint of hard spurring, to make up to him, than a loud ringing laugh replaced the mental irritation in which I thought he had been indulging a minute before.

"May I ask if you are laughing at me?" I said, abruptly; for, in the bad humor I was in, this hilarity seemed quite out of place.

"At you? No, Señor Cavalier," answered the Jarocho. "But you will excuse me if, at sight of your horse, I bid adieu for a time to all customary politeness."

"My horse is in no worse condition than the andante you are on," I replied, almost choking.

"You may think so; but that hack of yours is a mere bag of bones, and it is no small satisfaction to me to find one worse mounted than myself."

The horseman then began to laugh in such a merry, unconstrained fashion, that, tickled with the very absurdity of the thing, I could not help joining him, and we had a good hearty laugh together. The squabbling of the paroquets, struck with the unusual noise, ceased all of a sudden. They recommenced their ear splitting cries, till at last I discharged a pistol at random among the foliage. To my great surprise, a bird fell at my feet.