One morning in May, 1852—­that is, four years after the scene just described—­a friend of mine, who told me this story, stopped his horse in front of a mansion on San Francisco Avenue, in Madrid; he threw the reins to his groom, and asked the long-coated footman who met him at the door: 

“Is your master at home?”

“If your honor will be good enough to walk upstairs, you will find him in the library.  His excellency does not like to have visitors announced.  Everybody can go up to him directly.”

“Fortunately I know the house thoroughly,” said the stranger to himself, while he mounted the stairs.  “In the library!  Well, well, who would have thought of Captain Veneno ever taking to the sciences?”

Wandering through the rooms, the visitor met another servant, who repeated, “The master is in the library.”  And at last he came to the door of the room in question, opened it quickly, and stood, almost turned to stone for astonishment, before the remarkable group which it offered to his view.

In the middle of the room, on the carpet which covered the floor, a man was crawling on all-fours.  On his back rode a little fellow about three years old, who was kicking the man’s sides with his heels.  Another small boy, who might have been a year and a half old, stood in front of the man’s head, and had evidently been tumbling his hair.  One hand held the father’s neckerchief, and the little fellow was tugging at it as if it had been a halter, shouting with delight in his merry child’s voice: 

“Gee up, donkey!  Gee up!”