"You're whiter than your shirt, my Augustine. What do all these towers and stoppages signify?"
"They mean," continued my friend, with increasing embarrassment, "that in a little while you will be there. I desire you to go by night. All right, you arrive there. You stop. You wait a little, then you pass to the opposite sidewalk. You stretch your neck, and you will see a window over the wall of a garden. You pick up a pebble and throw it against the panes of glass lightly, to do little damage."
"And in a second she will come!"
"No; have patience. How do you know whether she will come or not come?"
"Well, let us suppose that she comes."
"Before I tell you another thing, you must understand that it is there the goodman Candiola lives. Do you know who Candiola is? Well, he is a citizen of Saragossa, a man who, as they say, has in his house a cellar full of money. He is avaricious and a usurer, and when he lends he guts his customers. He knows more about debtors, laws, and foreclosures than the whole court and council of Castile. Whoever goes to law with him is lost."
"From all this, the house with a gate painted chocolate color should be a magnificent palace."
"Nothing of the sort. You will see a wretched-looking house that seems about to fall down. I tell you that that goodman Candiola is a miser. He does not waste a real that he can help. And if you should see him about here you would give him alms. I will tell you another thing; he is never seen in Saragossa, and they call him goodman Candiola in mockery and contempt. His name is Don Jeronimo de Candiola; he is a native of Mallorca, if I am not mistaken."
"And this Candiola has a daughter?"
"Wait, man, how impatient you are! How do you know whether or not he has a daughter?" he answered, hiding his agitation by these evasions. "Well, as I was just going to tell you, Candiola is detested in the city for his great avarice and wicked heart. Many poor men has he put in prison after ruining them. Worse still, during the other siege he did not give a farthing for the war, nor take up arms, nor receive the wounded into his house, nor could they wring a peseta from him; and, as he said one day it was all one to him whether he gave to John or to Peter, he was on the point of being arrested."