“You are right, I am particular.  When I pay for work to be done I don’t want gassing over a bar.  I know what you are when the whisky is in you.”

Lablache stood with his great back to the fire watching his man from beneath his heavy lids.  Bad as he was himself the presence of this man filled him with loathing.  Possibly deep down, somewhere in that organ he was pleased to consider his heart, he had a faint glimmer of respect for an honest man.  The Mexican laughed harshly.

“Guess all you know of me, mister, wouldn’t make a pile o’ literature.  But say, what’s the game to-night?”

Lablache was gnawing his fingers.

“How much did you take from the Honorable?” he asked sharply.

“You told me to lift his boodle.  Time was short—­he wouldn’t play for long.”

“I’m aware of that.  How much?”

Lablache’s tone was abrupt and peremptory.  Mancha was trying to estimate what he should be paid for his work.

“See hyar, I guess we ain’t struck no deal yet.  What do you propose to pay me?”

The Mexican was sharp but he was no match for his employer.  He fancied he saw a good deal over this night’s work.

“You played on paper, I know,” said the money-lender, quietly.  He was quite unmoved by the other’s display of cunning.  It pleased him rather than otherwise.  He knew he held all the cards in his hands—­he generally did in dealing with men of this stamp.  “To you, the amounts he lost are not worth the paper they are written on.  You could never realize them.  He couldn’t meet ’em.”

Lablache leisurely took a pinch of snuff from his snuff-box.  He coughed and sneezed voluminously.  His indifferent coolness, his air of patronage, aggravated the Mexican while it alarmed him.  The deal he anticipated began to assume lesser proportions.

“Which means, I take it, you’ve a notion you’d like the feel of those same papers.”

Mancha had come to drive a bargain.  He was aware that the I.O.U.’s he held would take some time to realize on, in the proper quarter, but, at the same time, he was quite aware of the fact that Bunning-Ford would ultimately meet them.

Lablache shrugged his shoulders with apparent indifference—­he meant to have them.

“What do you want for the debts?  I am prepared to buy—­at a reasonable figure.”

The Mexican propped himself comfortably upon the corner of the desk.

“Say, guess we’re talkin’ biz, now.  His ‘lordship’ is due to ante up the trifle of seven thousand dollars—­”

The fellow was rummaging in an inside pocket for the slips of paper.  His eyes never left his companion’s face.  The amount startled Lablache, but he did not move a muscle.

“You did your work well, Pedro,” he said, allowing himself, for the first time in this conversation, to recognize that the Mexican had a name.  He warmed towards a man who was capable of doing another down for such a sum in such a short space of time.  “I’ll treat you well.  Two thousand spot cash, and you hand over the I.O.U.’s.  What say?  Is it a go?”