"Now," said Don Juan.
"We came to ask for your help," began Tom.
"If it's money you want, lad, as is only natural, why you shall have plenty," burst in John.
"It's men," answered our hero. "I want to raise a small force of Spaniards, and I want also a leader to act under my orders, on whom I can at once rely."
It was wonderful with what enthusiasm the two older gentlemen received this information. Don Juan pulled off his glasses and then pushed them back again on to his nose. He got up from his seat and paced backwards and forwards, and later suddenly faced the two officers.
"You want a command composed of Spaniards; I can lay my hand on such a force," he said. "Alfonso, my son, is now in Spain, within easy distance of Madrid, and, were I to command him, could raise a force there. But the men of the towns are not to be relied on. For guerrillas you could have none better than the mountaineers living on the frontier between Spain and Portugal."
"Just so," agreed Tom promptly. "Hardier and braver, sir."
"Precisely," came the answer; "and with this, added to their natural feelings of patriotism, they will be led by the son of the man on whose estate they work, and will have in supreme command that son's cousin, a British officer on the staff of no less a person than General Lord Wellington himself."
The little man skipped about the room in his enthusiasm, and forgot for the moment the decorum usually expected of a sedate business man. He snapped his fingers in his glee, and winked and blinked at Tom and at the company generally through his glasses.