I was dressed, and had had my coffee and hard, fat roll of Spanish bread, by half-past seven, as I was sure Ropes would be wanting to see me. I would not have disturbed Dick, who slept in a room across the patio, but I found him in the dining-room, wrestling with a glass of thick chocolate and a finger-shaped sweet biscuit. “I'm trying to like Spanish customs,” said he.
“Because, if I'm going to carry through that scheme of mine about motor traffic, I may have to live on the spot, you see.”
“Oh!” said I. “And what about Colonel O'Donnel's copper mines? Have you thought of a means to persuade him it's his duty to have them worked?”
“In a way, I have,” Dick answered dryly. “An indirect sort of way. What about our gasoline? Heard anything about it?”
“No. I'm going to find Ropes.”
“Rather a sell for Carmona, if he did order our bidons pricked, to feel it's his fault if we're held up as long as he is.”
“There's Ropes in the patio,” I said. “I'll go and interview him.”
“What news?” I asked.
“Well, sir, I did what the landlord said last night, and had a try for moto-naphtha—as they call it here—at the chemist's.”