"Rayo de Dios! Buy them, then."
"Yes; but at what price?"
"It is certain that cattle are growing scarcer and scarcer: offer them for each head bought here the price it would fetch at San Francisco."
"Hum! And how is the market down there?"
"About eighteen piastres."
"Oh, oh! That is to say, for six hundred head—"
"Ten thousand eight hundred piastres: offer the even money."
"That is dear."
"What would you have? You will have to do it."
"That is true; but it is hard."