He was such a charming and intelligent lad!...

Some mornings he had accompanied him in order to point out to him the best things in the city.

He had inquired among the consignees of the _Mare Nostrum_, hunting everywhere for news of his father.
Finally convinced that the captain must already be returning to Barcelona, he also had gone the day before.
"If you had only come twelve hours sooner, you would have found him still here." The porter knew nothing more.

Occupied in doing errands for some South American ladies, he had been unable to say good-bye to the young man when he left the hotel, undecided whether to make the trip in an English steamer to Marseilles or to go by railroad to Genoa, where he would find boats direct to Barcelona.
Ferragut wished to know when he had arrived.

And the porter, rolling his eyes, gave himself up to long mental calculation....