le secret object in view?'

''Valuable secret!' repeated Pepito, bursting into a fit of laughter;
'Yes, a valuable secret indeed! Oh! the joke of offering four hundred
dollars for what, 'twixt you and me, is not worth a cent. But who can it
be that is behind Pedro, in this matter? He must be some rival doctor,
or else a naturalist, on the same scent.'

''Is Senor Pride,' I inquired, 'a doctor--are you sure of that?'

''Yes--he must be--but I don't know,' exclaimed Pepito; 'I am at my
wits' end. If he is not, I have been working in the dark, and he has
deceived me with a false pretext; I am at a loss--dead beat. But one
thing is plain--I can make four hundred dollars, if I like.'

''And will you betray your employer?' said I indignantly.

''Time enough--never decide rashly, Caballero; I shall
deliberate--nothing like sleeping on important affairs; to-morrow--who
knows what to-morrow may bring forth?'

'So saying, Pepito arose, took his traveling sword under his arm, placed
his hat jauntily on his head, cast an admiring eye at the looking-glass,
and then brushed off some of the dust that still clung to his left
sleeve.

''The smile of Heaven abide with you, Senor,' said he, with a most
graceful bow. 'As for your friend's secret, do not be uneasy about it; I
am not going to meet Pedro to-night. I shall take advantage of his
absence to make a call on my lady-love. Pedro is a good fellow, but
shockingly self-conceited; he fancies himself far smarter than
I--perhaps he is--but somehow I fancy, this time he must be early if he
catches me asleep.'

'On his departure, I paid the bill, which both my friends had
overlooked, then walked out and seated myself on the Alameda, which at
that hour was thronged with promenaders. Isolated, buried in thought, in
the midst of that teeming throng, the various episodes in the drama of
which my mysterious neighbor was the principal character, passed before
my mind. I again and again reviewed the strange events which, by some
freak of fortune, I had been a witness to. What was the basis on which
my friend, with two sets of names, founded his dream of inexhaustible
wealth, this mission he had intrusted to Pepito? What the mission which
the agent laughed at, and which to gain a clue to, others were tempting
him with glittering bribes? And again, why the deceit practiced on
Pepito, by assuming the guise of a doctor? Each of these facts was a
text on which I piled a mountain of speculation