It was a Mr.Ezekiel Corwin, formerly known to these pages as "hired man" to the late Squire Blandford, of North Liberty, Connecticut, but now a shrewd, practical, self-sufficient, and self-asserting unit of the more cautious later Californian immigration.

As the stage rattled away again with more or less humorous and open disparagement of the town and the Posada from its "outsiders," he lounged with lazy but systematic deliberation towards Mateo Morez, the proprietor.
"I guess that some of your folks here couldn't direct me to Dick Demorest's house, could ye ?" The Senor Mateo Morez was at once perplexed and pained.

Pained at the ignorance thus forced upon him by a caballero; perplexed as to its intention.

Between the two he smiled apologetically but gravely, and said: "No sabe, Senor.

I 'ave not understood." "No more hev I," returned Ezekiel, with patronizing recognition of his obtuseness.