"All child's talk," he said roughly, "these buried treasures!—I have heard of them before. They are just two imaginative foreigners. I suppose they want you to advance their fare?"
"That is exactly what they do ask," said Poltavo.
The man at the desk laughed uneasily behind his veil and rose.
"It's the Spanish prison trick," he said; "surely you are not deceived by that sort of stuff?"
Poltavo shrugged his shoulders.
"Speaking as one who has also languished in a Spanish prison," he smiled, "and who has also sent out invitations to the generous people of England to release him from his sad position—a release which could only be made by generous payments—I thoroughly understand the delicate workings of that particular fraud; but we robbers of Spain, dear colleague, do not write in our native language, we write in good, or bad, English. We write not in vilely spelt Italian because we know that the recipient of our letter will not take the trouble to get it translated. No, this is no Spanish prison trick. This is genuine."
"May I see the letter?"
Poltavo handed it across the table, and the man turning his back for a moment upon his assistant lifted his veil and read. He folded the letter and put it in his pocket.
"I will think about it," he said gruffly.
"Another privilege I would crave from you in addition to the purely nominal privilege of receiving more salary," said Poltavo.