was a gift by a Spanish
Christian king to a Christian hidalgo for the spread of the gospel, and
not for the cheat and the swindle! I say that this mine was worked
by the slave, and by the mule, by the ass, but never by the cheat and
swindler. I say that if they have struck the hoss in the mine, they have
struck a hoss IN THE LAND, a Spanish hoss; a hoss that have no bridle
worth five thousand dollar in his mouth, but a hoss to rear, and a
hoss that cannot be struck out by a Yankee geologian; and that hoss is
Enriquez Saltillo!"

He paused, and laid aside his cigarette.

"Then they say, 'Dry up,' and 'Sell out;' and the great bankers say,
'Name your own price for your stock, and resign.' And I say, 'There is
not enough gold in your bank, in your San Francisco, in the mines of
California, that shall buy a Spanish gentleman. When I leave, I leave
the stock at my back; I shall take it, nevarre! Then the banker he say,
'And you will go and blab, I suppose?' And then, Pancho, I smile, I
pick up my mustache--so! and I say: 'Pardon, senor, you haf mistake, The
Saltillo haf for three hundred year no stain, no blot upon him. Eet is
not now--the last of the race--who shall confess that he haf sit at a
board of disgrace and dishonor!' And then it is that the band begin to
play, and the animals stand on their hind leg and waltz, and behold, the
row he haf begin!"

I ran over to him, and fairly hugged him. But he put me aside with
a gentle and philosophical calm. "Ah, eet is nothing, Pancho. It is,
believe me, all the same a hundred years to come, and where are you,
then? The earth he turn round, and then come el temblor, the earthquake,
and there you are! Bah! eet is not of the board that I have asked you
to come; it is something else I would tell you. Go and wash yourself
of thees journey, my leetle brother, as I have"--looking at his narrow,
brown, well-bred hands--"wash myself of the board. Be very careful of
the leetle old woman, Pancho; do not wink to her of the eye! Consider,
my leetle brother, for one hundred and one year he haf been as a nun, a
saint! Disturb not her tranquillity."

Yes, it was the old Enriquez; but he seemed graver,--if I could use that
word of one of such persistent gravity; only his gravity heretofore had
suggested a certain irony rather than a melancholy which I now fancied I
detected. And what was this "something else" he was to "tell me later"?
Did it refer to Mrs. Saltillo? I had purposely waited