"LET me see, let me see. Explain yourself."

"SeÑor Duque, the matter is as clear as possible. I spoke with Regnault to-day. If the furnaces are altered, a few roads made, and proper machinery set up, the mine can be made to yield half as much again as it now does. It may be as much as sixty thousand flasks of mercury. The outlay needed to produce these results would not exceed a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

"That seems to me a great deal."

"A great deal for such a result?"

"No, that seems to me a great many flasks."

"But I have no doubt that what Regnault says is true. He is an intelligent and practical engineer. He worked for six years in California; and, indeed, the English engineer said the same."

The persons holding this discourse were Requena and his secretary, or head-clerk, or whatever he called himself, since he had no particular style or title in the household. He was known only by his name—Llera. He was an Asturian, tall and bony, with a colourless, hard-featured face, enormously long arms and legs, and large hands and feet. His manner was rough and awkward; his eyes, which were fine, had a frank, honest look, and were bright with energy and intelligence. He was an indefatigable, an amazing worker. No one knew when he ate or slept. When he made his appearance at eight in the morning, he brought with him as much work ready done as most men get through in a day, and at midnight he might often still be seen in his office, pen in hand.

Salabert, having the gift of judging men, without which no one makes a great success in the world, had discovered Llera's intelligence and character after employing him for a short while as an underling, and without giving him any showy position—which was not at all his way—he made him a responsible one, by accumulating in his hands all the most important business of the house. He very soon was the great banker's confidential man, the soul of the business. His laborious industry put all the other employÉs to shame, and Salabert took advantage of it to load him with work after regular hours. Llera was at the same time his private secretary, his steward, the head clerk of the office, the inspector of all the works he had in construction, and the agent in most of his transactions. And for doing all this inconceivable amount of work—more than four men of average industry would have got through—he paid him six thousand pesetas a year. The man thought himself well paid, remembering that only six years ago he was earning but twelve hundred and fifty.

Every day, before taking his morning walk and paying his round of business calls, Requena looked into Llera's office, made inquiries as to things in general, and chatted with him for a longer or shorter time according to circumstances.

The Duke's offices were at the top of his palace in the Avenue de Luchana, a magnificent mansion, standing in the midst of a garden which for extent was worthy to be called a park. In the spring the dense foliage of the fine old trees almost hid the white tops of the turrets; in winter the numbers of firs and evergreens which grew there, still gave it a pleasant verdure. It was the meeting-place of all the birds in that quarter of the city. The entrance to the house was up a large flight of marble steps; above the ground floor, where the reception-rooms were, and the dining-room, there were three storeys, and the Duke's offices, which were not large, filled part only of the upper floor. They were large enough for Salabert, who conducted his affairs from thence, with the help of a dozen expert clerks.

The luxury displayed in the house was amazing; the furniture and fittings were almost priceless. This was not in keeping with the avarice with which the master was generally credited; but this and other contradictions will be explained as we become better acquainted with his character, which was curious enough to be well worthy of study.

The kitchens were in the basement, roomy and well-fitted; the dining-room, at the back of the house, opened into a conservatory of vast dimensions, filled with exotic shrubs and flowers, where water was laid on to form little pools and water-falls of charming effect and imitating nature as closely as possible. The picture-gallery was in a separate building at the end of the garden, and in another some of the servants slept, but not all.

The Duke, occupying the only chair in Llera's office, while the secretary stood in front of him twirling a large pair of scissors used for cutting paper, turned his wet cigar three or four times from one corner of his mouth to the other, and made no reply to the clerk's last words. At last he growled rather than said:

"Humph! The Ministry grows more pig-headed every day."

"What does that matter. You know the secret of making it give way. Telegraph to Liverpool, and within a fortnight the price of mercury will have fallen from sixty to forty dollars the flask."

About four years since, Requena, at Llera's suggestion and advice, had formed a company or syndicate for buying up all the mercury which should come into the market. Thanks to these tactics, the price of this product had gone up wonderfully. The company had now an enormous stock in hand at Liverpool; Llera's scheme was to throw this into the market at a given moment and so produce a great fall in the price, which would frighten the Government. This, which was to be done at the moment when the Government was about to repay a loan of fifteen million dollars borrowed ten years since of a foreign house, would reduce them to selling the mines of Riosa. If Requena was then prepared to pull the affair through at the sacrifice of a few thousands, to subsidise the press, and bribe certain individuals, he might be certain of success. This project, conceived of by Llera, and matured by the Duke, had run its due course, and was now near the final coup.

"Well, we shall see," said the rich man, and after meditating a few minutes he went on: "When the mines are for sale it will be necessary to form another company. The Mercury Syndicate will not serve our turn."

"Of course!"

"The thing is that I do not want to sink more than eight million pesetas in this concern."

"That is a different matter," said Llera, becoming very serious. "It does not seem to me possible to keep the control of such a business with so small a stake in it. The management will slip into other hands, and the profits will soon be reduced to so much per cent., more or less—that is to say, a mere nothing."

"Very true, very true," mumbled Salabert, again falling into deep thought. Llera too remained silent and pensive.

"I have already explained to you the only way of keeping the concern in your own hands," said he.

This way consisted in securing a sufficiently large number of shares in the mine which the company was to purchase, and to go on buying up as many as possible; then to throw them into the market at so low a price as to alarm the shareholders. Thus to buy and sell at a loss for some time was Llera's plan for bringing down the price of the shares, when he could acquire half the shares plus one, for much less money, and be master of the whole concern.

To Salabert this was not so clear as to his clerk. His intellect was keen and far-seeing, but he lacked breadth of view and initiative, though those who saw him boldly undertake ventures of vast scope were apt to think that he had them. The first conception, the mother idea, of a new concern scarcely ever originated in his brain. It came to him from outside; but once sown there it germinated and developed as it would have done in no other in Spain. By degrees he analysed it, or rather dissected it, laying bare its inmost fibres, contemplating it from all sides; and once convinced that it would prove advantageous, he launched it with the rare and surprising audacity which had so greatly deceived the public as to his gifts as a speculator. He was perfectly convinced that when once he had made up his mind to an enterprise, vacillation must be fatal. Still, this boldness proceeded not from his temperament but from reflection; it was the outcome of extreme astuteness.

Otherwise he was by nature timid, and this weakness, instead of diminishing under the almost invariable success of his undertakings, increased as time went on. Avarice is always suspicious and full of alarms, and Salabert grew more and more avaricious. Also, as a man grows older, it is a rule without exceptions, that pessimism soaks into his mind. Our banker, accustomed to grand results from his speculations, regarded any concern in which the profits were small as altogether deplorable; if by any chance they were nil, or he even lost a trifle, he thought it a matter for serious lamentation. Thus, but for Llera, with his bold temperament and fertile imagination, the Duke de Requena would not, for some years past, have ventured on any concern of even moderate extent. On the other hand, what he had lost in dash and resource he had made good by really astounding tact and skill, and a knowledge of men which can be acquired only by years of unremitting study. Thus it may be said that he and Llera complemented each other to perfection.

Salabert's sagacity and knowledge of human nature sometimes erred by excess; now and then he was caught in his own trap. In his dealings with men, studying them always from the point of view of substantial interest, he had formed so poor an opinion of them, that it became monstrous, and led him into serious mistakes. Perhaps, after all, what he saw in others was no more than the reflection of himself; to this error we are all liable. To him every man and woman had a price; a cheap conscience or a dear one, but all alike for sale. Of late years his faith in bribery had become a passion. If he came across any one who would not yield to money, he never suspected it could be in good faith, but only supposed the price was higher than his bid.

One of Llera's hardest tasks was to get such schemes of bribery out of his master's head when he had to do with men who would have rejected it with indignation. If he were engaged in a law-suit, the first thing he thought of was how much it would cost him to bribe the judge who would decide it; if he were concerned in a government transaction, he calculated the sum to be handed over to the Minister, or the Under-Secretary, or the Councillors of State. Unluckily, he not unfrequently made practical use of the black-lead he had always ready to disfigure the face of humanity with.

Requena had absolutely no moral sense, and never had known what it was. His life, as a nameless waif in Valencia, had been characterised by a series of tricks and dodges, and such a lively inventiveness of means for extracting coin from his fellow-creatures, as made him worthy to compare with the favourite heroes of Spanish romance. In fact the name of one of them, El picaro Guzman, had actually been bestowed on Salabert as a nickname by some wags of his acquaintance, but they kept it to themselves.

It was told of him with apparent truth that when he was in Cuba, whither he went to seek his fortune, he bought a tavern with all its furniture, including a negro woman who managed the business. This negress, for all the time he remained, was his servant, his housekeeper, his slave and his concubine, by whom he had several children. When he had saved some thousands of dollars to return to Spain, he squared his petty accounts by selling the tavern, the furniture, the black woman, and the children.

Then he took army contracts, speculated in tobacco, government loans and tenders for roads; these he sometimes sold again at a premium, and sometimes carried out the works without any regard to the conditions of the contract. But in all he did he displayed his wonderful capacity, his practical sagacity, and so large a development of the organ of acquisitiveness, as made him a man of mark among bankers.

He was not disagreeable to deal with, though, unlike most men who aspire to wealth or power, his manners were not smooth nor his language choice. He was brusque rather than courteous, but he was keen in the distinction of persons, and could be very civil when he must. The natural abruptness of his manners served him well to disguise the subtle astuteness of his mind. That blunt, straightforward air, that exaggerated freedom and provincial rusticity, could only cover a frank and loyal heart. To the outside world he was the perfect type of the old Castilian school, freespoken, downright and impertinent. He would be loquacious or taciturn as suited his purpose, expressed himself with real or affected difficulty—which, no one ever could discover—could sometimes jest with some wit, but with unfailing coarseness, and was wont to say such detestable things to the face of friend or foe as made him a terror in drawing-rooms. The importance his wealth conferred on him had encouraged this defect: he talked to most people, even to ladies, with a plainness which verged on cynicism and grossness.

Nevertheless, when he came across a person of political importance whom he desired to propitiate, this bluntness vanished and became flattery that was almost servile. But the farce, however well played, deceived no one. The Duke of Requena was regarded as a very wily old fox; no one believed a word he said, or allowed himself to be deluded by that blunt bonhomie. Those who had dealings with him were on their guard even when feigning confidence and satisfaction. Still, as always happens with a man who has succeeded in raising himself, the faults which every one recognised—or to be exact, his ill-fame—did not hinder his neighbours from respecting him, talking to him hat in hand and with a smile on their lips, even when they had no need of him. Men not unfrequently humble themselves for the mere pleasure of it. Salabert well knew this innate tendency of the human spine to bend, and took unfair advantage of it. Many men in quite independent circumstances not only took from him impertinence which they would have thought intolerable in their oldest friend, but even sought his society.

"We will see, we will see," he repeated, when Llera recapitulated the scheme for getting sole control of the mines. "You are too full of fancies. Your head is too hot. That does not do in business. We must take care not to get into the same scrape as we did with the granaries."

By Llera's advice the banker had constructed granaries in some of the principal towns of Spain, and they had not proved such a success as had been hoped. However, as the undertaking had been on a moderate scale the losses, too, had not been great. But the Duke, who had bewailed them as though they had been enormous, and had not spared his secretary much gross insult, was always reminding him of the disaster. It served him as a weapon when he wished to depreciate Llera's schemes, though he would afterwards avail himself of them, and owed to them considerable additions to his wealth. By such means he kept him in subjection, ignorant of his real value, and ready to undertake any task however disagreeable.

Llera, though somewhat mortified by this reminder, still insisted that the transaction now under consideration would infallibly succeed if it were conducted on the lines he had suggested. Salabert abruptly closed the discussion by changing the subject. He briefly inquired into the business of the day. The loss of some money he had advanced for a relation in Valencia put him into a frantic rage; he stamped and fumed like a bull stung by the darts, called himself a thousand fools, and actually had the face to declare, in Llera's presence, that his good nature would be the ruin of him. The whole loss amounted to about four or five thousand dollars. The form of loan which Requena adopted to his most intimate friends was this: he paid the sum usually in paper, demanding six per cent. on the securities deposited, and besides this he himself cut off the coupons, and claimed the dividends. So that the securities, instead of bringing in the net interest, yielded him six per cent. more. These were the dealings to which he was prompted, not by interest, but by kindness of heart!

He left Llera's office in a state of fury, went to the counting-room, and learning there that it was necessary to draw on the bank for nine thousand dollars in currency, he himself took charge of the cheque, after having signed it; he would have to go there to a meeting of directors, and it would be no trouble to him as he passed to get it cashed.

He went out on foot, as was his custom in the morning. The birds were singing in the beautiful trees which bordered the walks. It was quite clear that they had incurred no bad debts. The Duke cursed their foolish trick of singing, and would not listen to their gleeful trills. He walked on slowly with a gloomy scowl, taking no notice of the greetings of the gardeners and the gate-keeper, biting his huge cigar with more than usual viciousness. In the street, however, his face somewhat recovered its tone. He had a pleasant and useful meeting with the President of the Council of State, who likewise was fond of an early walk, and who bowed to him in the Avenue de Recoletos; they stood talking for a few minutes, and he availed himself of the opportunity of recommending to the President, with the intentional bluntness which he affected, the prospectus of certain salt-marshes in which he was interested. Then, at a deliberate pace, gazing with his prominent, guileless eyes at the passers by, and more especially at the fresh damsels hastening home from market with their baskets loaded, and their cheeks rosy from the effort, he proceeded to the Bank of Spain. Numbers of persons lifted their hats to him, now and again he paused for a moment, shook hands with one or another, and after exchanging a few words with an acquaintance, went on his way.

It was still early. Before reaching the Bank, it occurred to him that he would go to see his friend and connection CalderÓn, whose warehouse and counting-house were in the Calle de San Felipe Neri, still in the state in which his father had left them—that is to say, very poverty-stricken, not to say dirty and squalid. In these quarters, where the light filtered in through panes darkened by dust and protected by clumsy ironwork, and where the smell of hides was perfectly sickening, old CalderÓn with mechanical regularity had accumulated dollar on dollar, till several piles of a million each had formed there. His son Julian had made no change. Though he was one of the wealthiest bankers in Madrid he had not given up the hide warehouse and the small profits which this business brought in—small as compared with those on securities and stocks which the banking house dealt in.

CalderÓn was a banker of a different type from Salabert. He was of an essentially conservative temper, timid in speculation, always preferring small profits to large when there was any risk. His intelligence was somewhat limited, cautious, hesitating and circumspect. Every new undertaking struck him as madness. When he saw a friend embarking on one he smiled maliciously, and congratulated himself on the superior shrewdness with which he was gifted; if it turned out well he would shake his head, saying with determined foreboding: "Those who laugh last, laugh longest." At home he was parsimonious, nay stingy to a scandal; and though the house was kept on a comparatively luxurious footing, this was partly the result of his wife's entreaties, and the raillery of his friends, but even more of his conviction, slowly formed, that some external prestige was indispensable, if he was to compete with the numbers of skilful financiers established in the capital. But after having bought good furniture, he insisted on such care being taken of it, such refinements of precaution on the part of the servants and his wife and children, that they were really the slaves of these costly possessions. Then with regard to the carriage, it is impossible to imagine the anxieties and agitations without end which it cost him. Every time the coachman told him that a horse wanted shoeing it was a fresh worry. He had a pair of French mares of some value, and he loved them as he loved his children, or more. He drove them out of an evening; but never to go to the theatre for fear of cold; he would rather see his wife walk or take a hired carriage than expose them to any risk. And if one of them really fell ill, there are no words for our banker's state of mind; anxiety and dejection were written in his face. He went frequently to see the animal, patted and petted her, and would often assist the coachman and the vet. in applying the remedies, however unpleasant. Till the invalid had recovered no one in the house had any peace.

As a husband he was most officious; but in this he was hardly to blame. His wife's apathy was such that if he had not taken charge of the kitchen accounts and the store-cupboard keys, God knows how the house would have been kept. Mariana did nothing and gave no orders. Any other woman would have felt humiliated by finding herself obliged to refer to her husband at every moment for the most trifling details of domestic life, but she took it quite as a matter of course, and found it most convenient, when CalderÓn's stinginess did not make itself too pressingly felt. Her part was that of a child in the house, and she was quite content to play it.

The person who sometimes dumbly rebelled against the exclusive centralisation of all administrative power in the master's hands was Mariana's mother, the diminutive lady with deep set eyes, of whom mention was made in the first chapter. Her protests indeed were neither frequent nor lengthy. At heart she and her son-in-law were in perfect agreement. The old woman, the widow of a provincial merchant, who herself had helped in saving his capital, was even more devoted to order and economy than CalderÓn himself—that is to say, more sordidly thrifty. For this reason she never would have endured to live with her son; his expensive tastes, and, yet more, Clementina's extravagance and disreputable caprices enraged her, and would have embittered every moment of her life. In CalderÓn's house she was inspector or spy over the servants, and she filled the part to admiration. Her son-in-law could rest in confidence, and thanks to this and to his expectation that Mariana would be enriched by her will, he showed far more consideration for her than for his wife.

Salabert was at heart not less covetous than CalderÓn, and hardly less timid; but his intellect was very superior, his cowardice was counterbalanced by a strong infusion of bounce, and his avarice by a profound knowledge of mankind. He knew very well that the paraphernalia and ostentation of wealth have a marked influence on the minds of the most indifferent, and contribute in a great measure to inspire the confidence without which no important enterprise can prosper. Hence the luxury in which he lived—his palace, his servants, and the famous balls he occasionally gave to the fashionable world of Madrid. For CalderÓn he had a profound contempt, though at the same time his society put him into a good humour. As he contemplated his friend's inferiority he swelled in his own esteem, regarding himself as a greater man than he really was, and deriving from it the liveliest satisfaction. He not only judged himself to have more cleverness and astuteness—the only superior qualities he really possessed—but, to be, by comparison, generous and liberal, almost a prodigy.

Panting and puffing he went into the dark warehouse in the Calle de San Felipe Neri, producing the usual effect of amazing, crushing, annihilating the clerks of the house, to whom the Duke de Requena was not merely the greatest man in Spain, but a quite supernatural being. His visit impressed them with the same reverence and enthusiasm, awe and adoration, as the appearance of the Mikado arouses in the Japanese. And if they did not prostrate themselves with their foreheads in the dust, they coloured up to their ears, and for some minutes they could not put pen to paper, nor attend to the requirements of a customer. They looked at each other with awe-stricken eyes, repeating in an undertone, what indeed they all knew: "The Duke!" "The Duke!"

The Duke passed in, as usual when he by chance called there, without vouchsafing them a glance, and made his way to the little room where CalderÓn sat. Long before reaching him, he began shouting: "Caramba, Julian! When do you mean to get out of this hole? This is not a banking-house, it is a stye. Are you not ashamed to be seen here? Poof! Do you skin the beasts here, or what? The stink is intolerable."

CalderÓn's private room was beyond the front office, a mere closet, separated from the rest by a partition of painted wood, with a spring door. Thus he could hear all that his friend was saying, before Salabert reached him.

"What do you expect, man?" said he, somewhat nettled at his clerks being made the confidants of this philippic. "We are not all dukes, trampling millions under foot."

"Millions! Does it need millions to keep an office clean and comfortable? You had better confess that you cannot bear to spend a peseta in making yourself decent. I have told you many times, Julian, you are poor, and you will be poor all your days. I should be richer with a thousand pence than you with a thousand dollars—because I know how to spend them."

CalderÓn grumbled a protest and went on with his work. The Duke, without taking his hat off, dropped into the only easy chair, covered with white buckskin, or which ought to have been white, for it was of a doubtful hue now, between yellow and greenish-grey, with black patches where heads and hands were wont to rest. There were besides three or four stools covered with the same material, in the same state, a book-case full of bundles of papers, a small cash-box, an ancient walnut-wood writing-table covered with oil-cloth, and behind the table a greasy, shabby arm-chair in which the head of the house sat enthroned. This small room was lighted by a barred window, to ward off the prying looks of passers-by; there were blinds, which, being the cheapest and commonest of their kind, had this peculiarity, that one was much too wide and the other so short that it did not cover the lower pane by at least a quarter.

"Why in the world don't you quit this blessed leather-shop, which is not worthy of a man of your position and fortune?"

"Fortune—fortune!" muttered CalderÓn with his eyes still fixed on the paper he was writing on. "People talk of my fortune I know, but if I were compelled to liquidate, who knows what would come of it?"

CalderÓn never confessed his wealth; he loved to crawl; any allusion to his riches annoyed him beyond measure. Salabert, on the contrary, loved to flourish his millions in the face of the world, and play the nabob, at the smallest possible cost of course.

"Besides," CalderÓn went on with some acerbity, "every one looks at what comes in and never thinks of what goes out. Our expenses are greater every day. Have you any idea, now, of what our private expenditure has been this year? Come."

"Nothing much," replied Requena, with a depreciating smile.

"Nothing much? Why it amounts to more than seventy-five thousand dollars, and we are only in November."

"What do you say?" exclaimed the Duke greatly astonished. "Impossible!"

"As I tell you."

"Come, come; do not try to throw dust in my eyes, Julian. Unless you include in the seventy-five thousand the cost of the house you are building in Calle Homo de la Mata."

"Why, of course."

At this Salabert burst into such a fit of laughing that he seemed about to choke; the cigar dropped out of his mouth, his face, usually so pale, turned so red as to be alarming, and the fit of coughing which ensued was so violent that it threatened him with congestion.

"My dear fellow, I thank you! That is really delicious," he gasped between coughing and laughing. "I never thought of that before. Henceforth I will include in my household expenses all the paper I buy and the houses I build. I shall have accounts like a king's to show."

The Duke's hearty and uproarious mirth annoyed and piqued CalderÓn out of all measure.

"I really do not see what you are laughing at. The money goes out of the cash-box under the head of expenditure. And, at any rate, Antonio, a fool knows more of his own affairs than a wise man knows of his neighbours'."

The Duke's visits to his friend had of late been somewhat frequent. He had been hovering round him a good deal to tempt him into the mining speculation. The moment was drawing near when the sale must come on, and meanwhile he was anxious to secure the co-operation of some of the more important shareholders. Don Julian was one, not merely by reason of the capital he represented, but by the position he held. He enjoyed the reputation in the financial world of being a very cautious, or indeed suspicious man; thus his name as participator in a speculation was a guarantee of its security, and this was what Salabert required. So he was anxious not to vex him seriously, and changed the subject. With the curious suppleness and cunning which lay beneath his abrupt roughness, he managed to put him in a good humour by praising his foresight in a certain case when he would not be caught, reflecting on the folly of some rival dealers, and implying CalderÓn's superior skill and penetration. When he had got him into the right frame of mind he spoke, for the third or fourth time, in vague terms, of the mining company. He mentioned it as an unattainable vision, just to whet his friend's appetite.

"If they only could buy up the mine one of these days, what a stroke of business that would be! He had never in his life met with a better. Unfortunately the Government were not disposed to sell. However—damn it all! By a little good management and steady perseverance, in time perhaps—meanwhile what was wanted were a few men who could afford to invest a good round sum. If they were not to be found in Spain they must be sought elsewhere."

At the mere notion of a speculation CalderÓn shrank as a snail does when it is touched. And this was so big a thing, to judge from the vague hints the Duke threw out, that he completely disappeared into his shell. Then, when Salabert spoke rather more plainly, he turned gloomy and dull, uneasy and suspicious, as if he expected to be bled there and then of an exorbitant sum.

When Requena had finished a long and rather incoherent speech, which was almost a monologue, he abruptly rose:

"Ta ta, Julianito, I am off to the Bank."

He took out a fresh cigar, and without offering one to CalderÓn, who did not smoke, he lighted it for form's sake; but he at once let it go out and began chewing it as usual.

Don Julian gave a sigh of relief.

"Always in a state of feverish activity," said he with a smile, holding out his hand. "Always on the track of money!"

Just as he reached the door CalderÓn remembered that he might make something out of this visit.

"I say, Antonio, I have a heap of LondrÈs. Do you want them? I will let you have them cheap."

"No, I don't want any at present. What do you ask for them?"

"Forty-seven."

"Are there many of them?"

"Eight thousand pounds in all."

"Well, I really don't want them, but it is a good bargain. Good-bye."

He went to the Bank, assisted at the meeting, and after cashing his cheque for nine thousand dollars, went out with his friend Urreta, another of the great Madrid bankers. On reaching the Puerta del Sol they shook hands to part.

"Which way are you going?" asked Salabert.

"I am going to CalderÓn's office to see if he happens to be able to help me to some LondrÈs."

"Quite useless," said the other promptly. "I have just bought up all he had."

"That is unlucky. What did you give for them?"

"Forty-seven ten."

"Not very cheap. But I need them badly, so I should have taken them."

"Do you really need them?" said Salabert, putting his arm on the other's shoulders.

"I do indeed."

"Then I will be your Providence. How many do you want?"

"A large quantity, at least ten thousand pounds."

"Oh I cannot do that, but I can send you eight thousand this evening."

Urreta's face beamed with a grateful smile.

"My dear fellow, I cannot allow it. You want them yourself."

"Not so much as you do, and even if I did, you know my regard for you. You are the only Guipuzcoan of brains I ever met with," and as he spoke he patted him affectionately on the shoulder. They shook hands once more, Urreta pouring out a flood of grateful speeches, to which Salabert replied with the rough frankness which so greatly enhanced the merits of any service he might render; then they parted.

The Duke instantly got into a coach from the stand. "Go to Calle de San Felipe Neri, No.——."

"Yes, SeÑor Duque."

The Duke raised his head to look at the man.

"So you know me?" and without waiting for a reply, he jumped in and shut the door.

"Julian, Julian," he shouted to his friend before opening the door into CalderÓn's office. "I have come to do you a service. You are in luck, you wretch! Send me home those LondrÈs."

"Ha, ha!" exclaimed Julian with a triumphant smile. "So you want them?"

"Yes, my dear fellow, yes. I always want the thing you want to get rid of. Good-bye."

And without going into the little office, he let go of the spring door he had held open, and left. He desired the coachman to drive to a house in one of the northern quarters of the city, and reclined in a corner, munching his cigar and smoking with evident gratification. For our banker felt as much satisfaction after committing this piece of rascality, after cheating his friend of so many pesetas, as the righteous man knows after doing an act of justice or charity. His imagination, always on the alert when money might be made, wandered over the various concerns in which he was engaged, and the vehicle meanwhile carried him on towards the Hippodrome. More especially he dwelt on the mines of Riosa; the longer he thought of Llera's scheme, the better it pleased him. Still, it had its weak points, and he meditated on the means of fortifying them.

It was not yet late. Salabert had time still to pay one of those unavowed visits which form an item in the social round of many a man whose virtues are more conspicuous, and whose vices less blatant than his. He dismissed the coach he had hired, and, his call paid, he walked home.

As soon as he found himself in his private room, he put his hand in his pocket to take out his note-book. His face, which had shone with satisfaction at the consciousness of carrying about with him the golden key to every pleasure on earth, suddenly fell. A cloud of anxiety came over it. He felt more thoroughly. The pocket-book was not there. He tried all his other pockets. The same result.

"Damnation," he muttered, "I have been robbed. Robbed of ten thousand odd dollars. Curse my ill luck! If a day begins badly—three thousand dollars gone in a bad debt, and now nearly eleven thousand in a lump! A pretty morning's work I must say!"

He started to his feet and rang the bell vehemently for Llera. When the factotum appeared, he was walking up and down the room, strangely excited for a man who owned so many millions. He explained the case to the clerk. A torrent of words, growls, foul expletives, poured from his lips, and he flung away his half-chewed cigar, a sign of excessive disturbance.

"Possibly, SeÑor, you have not been robbed," Llera suggested, "you may have lost it. Where have you been?"

But this was a question the Duke was not prepared to answer.

"Damn it, what concern is that of yours?" he replied. "Do you suppose I am likely to have lost eleven thousand dollars? That is to say, lost them—of course I have. But some one else found them before they touched the ground."

"The best thing you can do, SeÑor Duque, is to let me go over the ground wherever you have been."

"I will go myself after luncheon. Go, if you have nothing else to suggest but calling on all my acquaintances."

Requena went downstairs, dismaying the house like a bombshell, not indeed of powder or dynamite, since uproariousness was not part of his nature, but of sulphuric acid or corrosive sublimate, which trickled into every corner and annoyed and burnt every one in turn. His wife, his lodge-keeper, his cook, Llera, and almost every one of his clerks, had some coarse insult flung in their teeth, in the tone of cynical brutality which he affected. After luncheon he was about to go out on his quest, when a servant came to tell him that a hackney coachman wished to speak with him.

"What does he want?"

"I do not know. He said he wanted to see the Duke."

Salabert, with a sudden flash of intuition, said:

"Show him up."

The man who came in was the driver of the coach which had conveyed him from CalderÓn's office to his mistress's house. The Duke looked at him anxiously.

"What is it?"

"This, SeÑor Duque, which is your excellency's no doubt," said the man, holding out the pocket-book.

The Duke seized it, hastily opened it, and shaking out the pile of bank notes it contained, counted them with the skill and rapidity of a practised hand. When he had done, he said:

"All right; there are none missing."

The man, who had no doubt looked for some reward, stood still for a minute or two.

"It is all right, my good fellow, quite right. Many thanks."

Then the poor man, with angry disappointment stamped on his face, turned to go, muttering good-day. The Duke looked at him with cruel humour, and before he had reached the door called after him with deliberate sarcasm:

"Look here, my man, I give you nothing, because to so honest a fellow as you the best reward is the satisfaction of having done right."

The coachman, at once puzzled and vexed, looked at him with an indescribable expression. His lips parted as if he were about to speak, but he finally left the room without a word.