“How is that?” I inquired. “Are they afraid that their friend will be punished?”
“Not so, Señor,” replied Maria; “slight grief indeed would it cause them, however great the trouble in which he had involved himself on their account; for this description of people have no affection, and would not care if all their friends were hanged, provided they themselves escaped. But they say that they have acted imprudently in sending you to prison, inasmuch as by so doing they have given you an opportunity of carrying a plan of yours into execution. ‘This fellow is a bribon,’ say they, ‘and has commenced tampering with the prisoners; they have taught him their language, which he already speaks as well as if he were a son of the prison. As soon as he comes out he will publish a thieves’ gospel, which will still be a more dangerous affair than the Gypsy one, for the Gypsies are few, but the thieves! woe is us; we shall all be Lutheranized. What infamy, what rascality! It was a trick of his own. He was always eager to get into prison, and now in evil hour we have sent him there, el bribonazo; there will be no safety for Spain until he is hanged; he ought to be sent to the four hells, where at his leisure he might translate his fatal gospels into the language of the demons.’”
“I but said three words to the alcayde of the prison,” said I, “relative to the jargon used by the children of the prison.”
“Three words! Don Jorge; and what may not be made out of three words? You have lived amongst us to little purpose if you think we require more than three words to build a system with: those three words about the thieves and their tongue were quite sufficient to cause it to be reported throughout Madrid that you had tampered with the thieves, had learnt their language, and had written a book which was to overturn Spain, open to the English the gates of Cadiz, give Mendizabal all the church plate and jewels, and to Don Martin Luther the archiepiscopal palace of Toledo.”
Late in the afternoon of a rather gloomy day, as I was sitting in the apartment which the alcayde had allotted me, I heard a rap at the door. “Who is that?” I exclaimed. “C’est moi, mon maitre,” cried a well-known voice, and presently in walked Antonio Buchini, dressed in the same style as when I first introduced him to the reader, namely, in a handsome but rather faded French surtout, vest and pantaloons, with a diminutive hat in one hand, and holding in the other a long and slender cane.
“Bon jour, mon maitre,” said the Greek; then glancing around the apartment, he continued, “I am glad to find you so well lodged. If I remember right, mon maître, we have slept in worse places during our wanderings in Galicia and Castile.”
“You are quite right, Antonio,” I replied; “I am very comfortable. Well, this is kind of you to visit your ancient master, more especially now he is in the toils; I hope, however, that by so doing you will not offend your present employer. His dinner hour must be at hand; why are not you in the kitchen?”
“Of what employer are you speaking, mon maître?” demanded Antonio.
“Of whom should I speak but Count ---, to serve whom you abandoned me, being tempted by an offer of a monthly salary less by four dollars than that which I was giving you.”
“Your worship brings an affair to my remembrance which I had long since forgotten. I have at present no other master than yourself, Monsieur Georges, for I shall always consider you as my master, though I may not enjoy the felicity of waiting upon you.”