use I
do not go out of doors...."

"And so you want me to fill the gap, do you?"

Mendoza was silent, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground.

"Well then, my friend," said the brigadier's son in a determined voice,
"I am sorry to tell you that I will not undertake to ask money or
guarantees of money from any one."

Both were silent for some time after these words. At last Mendoza,
without lifting his eyes from the floor, and evidently disturbed, began
to speak:--

"I believe that if you were willing, the matter might be arranged
without asking money of any one.... Eguiburu will be satisfied if only
your name is endorsed, and he will furnish all that is necessary each
month...."

Miguel looked at him keenly, while the other stood still with downcast
eyes; then he said, with a laugh:--

"You are indeed a man of happy ideas! If you die before I do, I shall be
able to take your skull, and say more complimentary things than Hamlet
said about Yorick's."

Then he suddenly grew serious, and began to pace up and down the room
with the letter in his hands. After a while he stopped in front of his
friend, who was still standing in the position of a whipped schoolboy,
and said:--

"And who is going to guarantee _me_ the general paying those thirty
thousand duros?"

"The general is a man of honor."

"Eguiburu, as you well know, will not be satisfied with such money; he
wants either gold or silver."

"Besides, the count has many wealthy friends; some of them, as you well
know, are compromised in this movement, and if the whole debt of the
paper were put upon any one of them it would be paid."

The matter was discussed for a long time between them; Miguel in his
ordinary jesting tone, Mendoza with his imperturbable gravity, and
showing no impatience, but holding firmly to his reasons.

Rivera was over-persuaded. He finally yielded, and consented to endorse
the paper. Over and above his friend's entreaties there was the interest
which he felt in the success of the journal, and the affection which he
felt for it; and these influenced him to take the step. On the other
hand, although he jested at the general's honor, he did not doubt it,
and was certain that he would not be "left on the bull's horns."

When, on the next day, he told Maximina what he had done, she said
nothing, and went on working at the edging which she had in her hands.

"What do you think about it? Did I make a mistake?"

Maximina lifted her sweet,