As "a man among men," he didn't; as a man among--I shall
have to say, "females," he didn't; his intense masculinity seemed
only fit complement to their intense femininity. But here he was
all out of drawing.
Moadine was a big woman, with a balanced strength that
seldom showed. Her eye was as quietly watchful as a fencer's.
She maintained a pleasant relation with her charge, but I doubt
if many, even in that country, could have done as well.
He called her "Maud," amongst ourselves, and said she was
"a good old soul, but a little slow"; wherein he was quite wrong.
Needless to say, he called Jeff's teacher "Java," and sometimes
"Mocha," or plain "Coffee"; when specially mischievous, "Chicory,"
and even "Postum." But Somel rather escaped this form
of humor, save for a rather forced "Some 'ell."
"Don't you people have but one name?" he asked one day,
after we had been introduced to a whole group of them, all with
pleasant, few-syllabled strange names, like the ones we knew.
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