Montoro was back like an arrow.
"Ay, Señor Mendez; what would you with me?"
"What would I?" was the hasty answer. "Why everything; all manner of things. But thou'rt such a fellow! Thou'rt never at hand when needed. At least,"—still growling, but with a grim dawning accent of compunction for injustice,—"at least not always. Here thou'st left me to well-nigh lose the half of my hand, while thou'st been trying to wheedle gold mine secrets out of those poor fools yonder, with that soft tongue of thine."
"No such thing," exclaimed Rodrigo de Escobar with his usual volubility, before Montoro could answer for himself. "You are mistaken, Mendez. Had the lad been using a soft tongue so usefully his absence might be the more readily forgiven him. But it is a stupid soft heart that deserves the blame this time. Because gold-seeker, discoverer, navigator, builder, and half-a-dozen other things are not trades enough for the young jackanapes to take to at once, he must needs be taking a turn now at surgery."
"Nay then, Rodrigo," said his friend incredulously, and looking alternately from the laughing accuser to the half-troubled accused. The face of neither tended in any way to relieve the notary's curiosity. "Speak out, man," he said at last. "With what is it that you charge the lad?"
"With what I say," replied de Escobar with another laugh. "With playing the surgeon unauthorized, Children and monkeys are all alike—they must needs imitate what they see others doing; and consequently, one of those monkey-children yonder got hold of my hammer awhile since, and of course contrived to hammer its own fingers pretty sharply."
"Terribly!" broke in Montoro impulsively, forgetting his temporary shyness in the recollection of his pity. "The poor little creature, my señor, has hammered his fingers perfectly black, and the poor ignorant mother could only cry over it, and do nothing; and so—and so—"
And so, and so Montoro Diego once more grew shy as his own part in the business drew to the fore, and came to a stammering conclusion, and Diego Mendez with a smile took up the tale.
"And so, and so then, my friend, I suppose you do really confess that Don Rodrigo de Escobar has laid only true things to your charge, and that you have thought, by adding your ignorance to the woman's ignorance, to make one wisdom. Hey, my modest young friend, then is it so?"
Montoro looked up now, with flushed cheeks it is true, but with some returning boldness also, as he replied sturdily—