Bartleby the Scrivener: A Tale of Wall Street

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92 THE PIAZZA TALES
His own attention thus redirected to that quarter,
Captain Delano gave a slight start. From something in
Don Benito's manner just then, it seemed as if the visitor
had, at least partly, been the subject of the withdrawn
consultation going on— a conjecture as little agreeable
to the guest as it was little nattering to the host.
The singular alternations of courtesy and ill-breeding
in the Spanish captain were unaccountable, except on
one of two suppositions— innocent lunacy, or wicked
imposture.
But the first idea, though it might naturally have
occurred to an indifferent observer, and, in some respect,
had not hitherto been wholly a stranger to Captain
Delano's mind, yet, now that, in an incipient way, he
began to regard the stranger's conduct something in the
light of an intentional affront, of course the idea of
lunacy was virtually vacated. But if not a lunatic,
what then ? Under the circumstances, would a gentleman,
nay, any honest boor, act the part now acted by
his host ? The man was an impostor. Some low-born
adventurer, masquerading as an oceanic grandee ; yet
so ignorant of the first requisites of mere gentlemanhood
as to be betrayed into the present remarkable indecorum.
That strange ceremoniousness, too, at other times
evinced, seemed not uncharacteristic of one playing a
part above his real level. Benito Cereno—Don Benito
Cereno—a sounding name. One, too, at that period,
not unknown, in the surname, to supercargoes and sea-
captains trading along the Spanish Main, as belonging
to one of the most enterprising and extensive mercantile
families in all those provinces ; several members of it
having titles ; a sort of Castilian Rothschild, with a
noble brother, or cousin, in every great trading town of
South America. The alleged Don Benito was in early
manhood, about twenty-nine or thirty. To assume a