“But, señor!” was volubly protesting the legislator, with excitement. “They say the majority is assured, that the bill already drawn, that the capital is to be moved to Albuquerque at this very session!”
“I know,” said Coravel, passively, his dark eyes gently mournful.
“You know? But what—what is to be done? Shall those down-state people take away our capital? We must prevent it! We must do something! It’s this man Mackintavers who is at the bottom of it, I suppose——”
Coravel Tio fingered a blanket which topped a pile beside him—a gaudy red blanket. He regarded it with curious eyes.
“I fear this is not genuine—it does not have the old Spanish uniform red,” he murmured, as though inwardly he were thinking only of his wares. Then suddenly his eyes lifted to the other man, and he smiled. In his smile was a piercing hint of mockery like a half-sheathed sword; before that smile Cota stammered and fell silent.
“Oh, señor, this matter of the capital!” answered Coravel Tio, softly. “Why, for many, many years men have said that the capital is to be moved to Albuquerque; yet it has not been moved! Nor will it be moved. And, Señor Cota, let me whisper something to you! I hear that you have bought a new automobile. That is very nice, very nice! But, señor, if by any chance you are misled into voting for that bill, it would be a very sad event in your life; a most unhappy event, I assure you! Señor, customers await me. Adios.”
As the legislator left the shop, he furtively crossed himself, wonder and fear struggling in his pallid features.
The merchant now turned to his waiting customers. Of these, one was a Pueblo, a Cochiti man as the fashion of his high white moccasins and barbaric apparel testified to a knowing eye. The others were two white men who together approached the curio dealer. Coravel Tio stepped to a show case filled with onyx and other old carvings, and across this faced the two men with an uplift of his brows, a silent questioning.
“You’re Mr. Coravel—Coravel Tio?” queried one of the two. The dealer merely smiled and nodded, in his birdlike fashion. “Can we see you in private?”
“I have no privacy,” said Coravel Tio. “This is my shop. You may speak freely.”