The husband agreed, and they went right away, he croaking, and she with a jump, and took up their quarters by the tree.
The man, who was a wretch that had never in his whole life seen either of them, opened eyes like a pair of great olives when the two appeared suddenly in front of him.
"And with his grace's worship also," replied the poor man.
"Yes, sir; I have six children as naked as colts, with throats like old stocking-legs; but, as to property, I have only _grab and swallow_, and often not that."
"Why? Because I can't find work, and I'm so unlucky that everything I undertake turns out as crooked as a goat's horn. Since I married, it appears as though a frost had fallen on me. I'm the fag of ill-hap. Now, here--a master set us to dig him a well for a price, promising doubloons when it should be finished, but giving not a single _maravedi_[18] beforehand."
"The master was wise," remarked Don Dinero. "'Money taken, arms broken,' is a good saying. Go on, my man."
"I put my soul in the work; for, notwithstanding your worship sees me looking so forlorn, I am a man, sir."
"Yes," said Don Dinero, "I had perceived that."
"But there are four kinds of men, señor. There are men that are men; there are good-for-naughts; and contemptible monkeys; and men that are below monkeys, and not worth the water they drink. But, as I was telling you, the deeper we dug, the lower down we went, but the fewer signs we found of water. It appeared as if the centre of the world had been dried. Lastly, and finally, we found nothing, señor, but a cobbler."
"In the bowels of the earth!" exclaimed Don Dinero, indignant at hearing that his ancestral palace was so meanly inhabited.
"No, señor!" said the man deprecatingly; "not in the bowels; further on, in the country of the other tribe."
"My friend, I am going to do you a favor," said Don Dinero pompously; and he put a dollar in the man's hand.
The man hardly credited his eyes; joy lent wings to his feet, he was not long in arriving at a baker's shop and buying bread, but, when he went to take out his money, he found nothing in his pocket but the hole through which his dollar had gone without saying good-by.
The poor fellow was in despair; he looked for it, but when did one of his sort ever find anything? No; St. Anthony guards the pig that is destined for the wolf. After the money he lost time, and after time patience, and, that lost, he fell to casting after his bad luck every curse that ever opened lips.