’After his friend’s departure, Pepito sat silent; his brow was knit, and yet a mocking sneer played around his lips; he seemed to be pursuing two trains of thought at once; suspicion and merriment were clearly working in his mind.

’’This is a droll affair, Caballero; I can’t clearly see the bottom of it’

‘’There is nothing very unusual in it that I see,’ I replied, ’for every day men sacrifice honor for gold.’

’’True, nothing more common, and yet this proposition beats all I ever met with.’

‘’In what respect?’

’’Why, the interest that these folks who employ Pedro, take in this journey that I undertook for your friend, Senor Pride.’

‘’But, if this journey has some valuable 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.