According to these recommendations, Manuel X.was supreme in all the arts connected with his complex trade; and these manifold arts were mentioned--and praised-in detail.

His English was spoken of in terms of warm admiration--admiration verging upon rapture.
I took pleased note of that, and hoped that some of it might be true.
We had to have some one right away; so the family went down stairs and took him a week on trial; then sent him up to me and departed on their affairs.

I was shut up in my quarters with a bronchial cough, and glad to have something fresh to look at, something new to play with.

Manuel filled the bill; Manuel was very welcome.

He was toward fifty years old, tall, slender, with a slight stoop--an artificial stoop, a deferential stoop, a stoop rigidified by long habit--with face of European mould; short hair intensely black; gentle black eyes, timid black eyes, indeed; complexion very dark, nearly black in fact; face smooth-shaven.