“Mirar the leetle old one!” said Enriquez, with unflinching gravity.  “Consider her, Pancho, to the bloosh!  She is not truly an Aztec, but she is of years one hundred and one, and LIFS!  Possibly she haf not the beauty which ravishes, which devastates.  But she shall attent you to the hot water, to the bath.  Thus shall you be protect, my leetle brother, from scandal.”

“Enriquez,” I burst out suddenly, “tell me about yourself.  Why did you leave the El Bolero board?  What was the row about?”

Enriquez’s eyes for a moment glittered; then they danced as before.

“Ah,” he said, “you have heard?”

“Something; but I want to know the truth from you.”

He lighted a cigarette, lifted himself backward into a grass hammock, on which he sat, swinging his feet.  Then, pointing to another hammock, he said:  “Tranquillize yourself there.  I will relate; but, truly, it ees nothing.”

He took a long pull at his cigarette, and for a few moments seemed quietly to exude smoke from his eyes, ears, nose, even his finger-ends—­everywhere, in fact, but his mouth.  That and his mustache remained fixed.  Then he said slowly, flicking away the ashes with his little finger:—­

“First you understand, friend Pancho, that I make no row.  The other themself make the row, the shindig.  They make the dance, the howl, the snap of the finger, the oath, the ‘Helen blazes,’ the ‘Wot the devil,’ the ‘That be d—­d,’ the bad language; they themselves finger the revolver, advance the bowie-knife, throw off the coat, square off, and say ‘Come on.’  I remain as you see me now, little brother—­tranquil.”  He lighted another cigarette, made his position more comfortable in the hammock, and resumed:  “The Professor Dobbs, who is the geologian of the company, made a report for which he got two thousand dollar.  But thees report—­look you, friend Pancho—­he is not good for the mine.  For in the hole in the ground the Professor Dobbs have found a ‘hoss.’”

“A what?” I asked.

“A hoss,” repeated Enriquez, with infinite gravity.  “But not, leetle Pancho, the hoss that run, the hoss that buck-jump, but what the miner call a ‘hoss,’ a something that rear up in the vein and stop him.  You pick around the hoss; you pick under him; sometimes you find the vein, sometimes you do not.  The hoss rear up, and remain!  Eet ees not good for the mine.  The board say, ‘D—–­ the hoss!’ ‘Get rid of the hoss.’  ’Chuck out the hoss.’  Then they talk together, and one say to the Professor Dobbs:  ’Eef you cannot thees hoss remove from the mine, you can take him out of the report.’  He look to me, thees professor.  I see nothing; I remain tranquil.  Then the board say:  ’Thees report with the hoss in him is worth two thousand dollar, but without the hoss he is worth five thousand dollar.  For the stockholder is frighted of the rearing hoss.  It is of a necessity that the stockholder should remain tranquil.  Without the hoss the report is good; the stock shall errise; the director shall sell out, and leave the stockholder the hoss to play with.’  The professor he say, ‘Al-right;’ he scratch out the hoss, sign his name, and get a check for three thousand dollar.”