“Then I errise—­so!” He got up from the hammock, suiting the action to the word, and during the rest of his narrative, I honestly believe, assumed the same attitude and deliberate intonation he had exhibited at the board.  I could even fancy I saw the reckless, cynical faces of his brother directors turned upon his grim, impassive features.  “I am tranquil.  I smoke my cigarette.  I say that for three hundred year my family have held the land of thees mine; that it pass from father to son, and from son to son; it pass by gift, it pass by grant, but that nevarre there pass A lie with it!  I say it was a gift by a Spanish Christian king to a Christian hidalgo for the spread of the gospel, and not for the cheat and the swindle!  I say that this mine was worked by the slave, and by the mule, by the ass, but never by the cheat and swindler.  I say that if they have struck the hoss in the mine, they have struck a hoss in the land, a Spanish hoss; a hoss that have no bridle worth five thousand dollar in his mouth, but a hoss to rear, and a hoss that cannot be struck out by a Yankee geologian; and that hoss is Enriquez Saltillo!”

He paused, and laid aside his cigarette.

“Then they say, ‘Dry up,’ and ‘Sell out;’ and the great bankers say, ‘Name your own price for your stock, and resign.’  And I say, ’There is not enough gold in your bank, in your San Francisco, in the mines of California, that shall buy a Spanish gentleman.  When I leave, I leave the stock at my back; I shall take it, nevarre!  Then the banker he say, ‘And you will go and blab, I suppose?’ And then, Pancho, I smile, I pick up my mustache—­so! and I say:  ’Pardon, senor, you haf mistake, The Saltillo haf for three hundred year no stain, no blot upon him.  Eet is not now—­the last of the race—­who shall confess that he haf sit at a board of disgrace and dishonor!’ And then it is that the band begin to play, and the animals stand on their hind leg and waltz, and behold, the row he haf begin!”

I ran over to him, and fairly hugged him.  But he put me aside with a gentle and philosophical calm.  “Ah, eet is nothing, Pancho.  It is, believe me, all the same a hundred years to come, and where are you, then?  The earth he turn round, and then come el temblor, the earthquake, and there you are!  Bah! eet is not of the board that I have asked you to come; it is something else I would tell you.  Go and wash yourself of thees journey, my leetle brother, as I have”—­looking at his narrow, brown, well-bred hands—­“wash myself of the board.  Be very careful of the leetle old woman, Pancho; do not wink to her of the eye!  Consider, my leetle brother, for one hundred and one year he haf been as a nun, a saint!  Disturb not her tranquillity.”