"Hey?" cried Gallup, giving her a look of mock reproof. "Naow yeou be keerful, young woman! I ain't fergut that you was kinder smashed on him once."
At this his wife laughingly protested her innocence.
"Nevvier, nevvier after I knew you loved me, Ephraim," she declared. "One time I theenk you do not care. Then I geet so very angry. Then I make eyes at ze handsome Señor Merriwell. I do eet to see how you like that. Eet make you geet to your job on. Eet make you set your tongue loose and say the word I want you to say. Señor Merriwell he not care one snap for me. I know eet. Do you theenk Teresa ees the foolish girl?"
"Not a hanged bit of it!" chuckled Gallup. "She was the slickest little article I ever run up ag'inst. I guess yeou're right, Teresa. I guess yeou kinder waked me up when you flung them goo-goo eyes at Frank. Fust time in my life I ever felt that way, but, by ginger! I wanted to swat him on the jaw. Great Hubbard squashes, wasn't I in love then!"
His wife frowned.
"Een love then?" she exclaimed. "You not be so much so now, ah?"
"Thunder! I'm ten times wuss now than I was then, and you know it, Teresa. Didn't I coax and beg and hang on like a dog to a bone to git you to come East with me to visit Frank?"
"It was the baby," breathed Teresa. "The question was to breeng the baby or to leave eet with eets grand-fathaire. I know he take the most splendeed care of eet. He have the nursees watch all the time, and he watch heemself. He know how to care for the baby most beautiful."
"That's right," nodded Gallup, "the old don is a rappin' good baby nuss. It's the funniest thing in the world to see him doddling round with a baby in his arms. And to think that he used to be a red-hot revolutionist, and called the Firebrand of Sonora! As a fighter, he was a rip-tearer. As a baby nuss he's the greatest expert that ever wore men's trousers."
"Begob, the don is all roight, all roight," agreed Barney. "The only gint who iver downed him was Frankie Merriwell. Instid av layin' it up against Frankie, and lookin' for revinge, the way people ginerally suppose Mexicans and Spaniards do, the don shook hands, and became wan av Frankie's bist friends."