“Oh! Master, do not kill yourself!” cried the terrified man.
“Nay, be easy, my friend,” said Leon pointing to his forehead. “This brain is not bent on suicide.—As to the pistols, if they are loaded you had better drop them into the street, for the first fool to experiment upon.”
“Throw them away! They are beauties!”
“Well, keep them yourself then; keep them till you marry.”
“You forget, Sir; I am married.”
“Well then, till you are a widower.”
“From Marqués de Fúcar to Marqués de Onésimo.
“Madrid, December 1st.
“Before leaving London via Hamburg to purchase the twenty bales of tobacco, sell all the Rio Tinto shares, and the foreign consols. Buy at once Paris Gas, and Spanish crédit mobilier. The loan—the third State loan this year—is getting on capitally. I want an investment here to enable me to propose to the Government to pay off part of the foreign coupons to English holders, which will promote the affair here very effectually; the profits I anticipate from this are incalculable. For everything else act on my instructions of November 23rd. Do not forget my orders for taking every advantage of the Hamburg tobacco merchants; no backwardness; business is good, so you need not run up to extravagant prices.