e last read The Eighteenth Chapter, in which a missionary turned up dead and drifting in a canoe.
After breakfast, as the philanthropist reclined naked in his bed, his courtesan draped elegantly beside him, a servant brought him an envelope. It contained neither address nor return and must have been hand-delivered to his door. Even more curious, the wax seal was black and embossed with a crow, a crest that was yet familiar to the man.
Tentatively, the philanthropist broke open the seal whereupon sweat instantly appeared upon his brow. Emptying the contents of the envelope, he felt the familiar weight of one Spanish doubloon in his hand. He looked at this token for a moment, his eyes closing intensely as his temples throbbed. Then, with sudden urgency, the philanthropist ran to his window and wretched over the balcony, passersby changing course to avoid his breakfast.
There was, in the southernmost region of Spain, a child without a penny to his name. The boy had no father and his mother had wasted away from consumption, so he stood on street corners and begged for morsels to eat.
At night, the elder urchins took advantage of him. They robbed him of what pittance he had earned and rendered his day for naught. Beaten down by a desperate lot and spit upon by passersby, the urchin wallowed in self-pity and doubt when he had the time to ponder it, and was consumed by the pain of hunger and the fear of death when he did not.
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