Veneda gave a start, so small that it was unnoticed save by the Albino.
"What matter?"
The dwarf cast a look at him full of withering contempt.
"Now, see you," he said angrily, "it's not a bit of good your coming here and trying to make me believe that you want the whole story overhauled again. You know very well what I mean."
"That poor hunted devil of an English banker in the Calle de San Pedro, I suppose?"
"You suppose! Look here, Marcos Veneda, what the devil's the use of your wasting our time playing 'possum like that?'
"How was I to know to what you alluded? we've so many irons in the fire. But since we are on that subject, Macklin, I've got something to say about it. Don't you think we might give the poor cur a run for his miserable life? From all accounts he's pretty well frightened out of his senses already!"
The Albino, Vargas, and Nunez stared with astonishment; in all their experience of him, they had never known Marcos Veneda behave like this before. The Albino laughed suspiciously.
"I wonder what your little game is, my friend," he said. "This is a new line for you. Want us to spare him, do you? Very pretty, I'm sure; would look well in a tract, wouldn't it, with a devil dodger's head on the frontispiece!"
"Stow that, Macklin; I only want fair play for the wretch."