"Ah! Señor Cavalier," cried he, advancing with the glass in his hand, "allow me to offer you--"
"No, I am not thirsty; but I have some good news for you."
I tried then to tell him that he had been falsely informed when he had been told that the person who was trying to dispossess him of his mine was Remigio Vasquez. It was a long time before I could make the obfuscated drunkard understand the purport of my visit, and undeceive him with regard to the Biscayan.
"You see that I am delighted," cried he, when he had at last made out the meaning of my words.
"No, for my own sake. I don't fear his information," he replied, with a drunken frankness; "but if that change my intentions regarding him, Remigio Vasquez's affair is not a bit improved. I mean to say--(and, swallowing what remained in his glass, he seemed to be trying to collect his thoughts)--I mean that it is capital for--for--"
"For whom?" I exclaimed, losing all patience.
"Ah! caramba, for our intimate friend, the respectable Don Tomas Verdugo, as your lordship styles him."
And the miner was not slow in telling me that the bravo would receive a considerable sum from the injured father, as he had been told, to avenge the insult offered to his outraged family.
"And where is Don Tomas?" I inquired of Florencio. "I am sure that I can undeceive him as well as yourself."
"I think I know where he is at present," replied Planillas.
"Well, why do you wait here? Let us set out immediately in search of him."
"I would like well enough to be off; but, you see, I can't quit this place without paying my score, and I have not a single tlaco about me."
"That needn't detain you. Call the publican."
"Truly," said Florencio, with much effrontery, "yesterday evening you partook of my hospitality; if you clear my expenses to-day, we shall be quits."
The publican immediately appeared, and I inquired how much Florencio owed him. The miner tipped him the wink, and the other immediately said, "Two piastres." This was far too much, and the drunken scoundrel would very likely gain a piastre and a half by it; but time was precious. I yielded, and we hastened in pursuit of Don Tomas. Unluckily, the tottering legs of my companion but ill seconded my efforts, and I was obliged to proceed very slowly. In this manner we traversed a considerable part of the town. Every now and then the drunken rascal stopped before a house, saying he was within, but he was invariably mistaken. We at last stood before a dark, steep, wet alley, at the end of which you saw the dusky light which issued from a garden.