finery were piled in riotous profusion in our cave where--let the whole
truth be told if it must--I lived with a bold, black-eyed and coquettish
Spanish girl, who loved me with ungovernable jealousy that occasionally
led to bitter and terrible scenes of rage and despair. At last when I
brought home a white and red English girl whose life I spared because
she had begged me her knees by the memory of my sainted mother to spare
her for her old father, who was waiting her coming, Joquita passed all
bounds. I killed her--with a single knife thrust I remember. She was
buried right on the spot where the Tilden and Hendricks flag pole
afterwards stood in the campaign of 1876. It was with bitter melancholy
that I fancied the red stripes on the flag had their color from the
blood of the poor, foolish jealous girl below.

* * * * *

Ah, well--

Let us all own up--we men of above forty who aspire to respectability
and do actually live orderly lives and achieve even the odor of
sanctity--have we not been stained with murder?--aye worse! What man has
not his Bluebeard closet, full of early crimes and villainies? A certain
boy in whom I take a particular interest, who goes to Sunday-school and
whose life is outwardly proper--is he not now on week days a robber of
great renown? A week ago, masked and armed, he held up his own father in
a secluded corner of the library and relieved the old man of swag of
a value beyond the dreams--not of avarice, but--of successful,
respectable, modern speculation. He purposes to be a pirate whenever
there is a convenient sheet of water near the house. God speed him.
Better a pirate at six than at sixty.