“Tucumán 1671.”
“Well, now, how could we arrange?” puzzled the townsman. “You could go and get the bank-book. Or shall I go with you? No, it will be better for me to stay here with our friend, for with seven thousand pesos in his pocket, which anyone might take away from him—but you could run home and get the bank-book, and that perhaps would keep him interested until to-morrow, when the banks open—for of course, being a man from the pampa, he won’t know that a bank-book is proof of having money—and to-morrow you could get the money out and.... How much money have you in the bank?”
“I can’t say exactly,” I answered, ostensibly cudgeling my brains to remember, “perhaps a little over six thousand pesos.”
“Ah, that’s fine,” said the Porteño, his eyes shining, “because that, with what I have, will just about equal the seven thousand our friend has, and give him full confidence.” We turned back toward the countryman.
“Of course,” went on my companion, bringing his lips close to my ear, “when we get that seven thousand—and I know you are not the sort of man who will beat me out of my share just because it is going to be put into your hands. Are you?” When I shook my head he grasped my hand and shook it fervently. “When we get that seven thousand it won’t much matter whether the priest and the hospital—you understand me, as man to man, don’t you?”
I gave him a wise look as we rejoined the countryman, who was nursing his feet as if city pavements were already blistering them. When we told him that if he wished to see my six thousand—for, as we expected, he had little knowledge of, or faith in, bank-books—he would have to stay over until the next day, he protested, naturally, that he must take the evening train, his poor father being likely to die at any moment. But he was apparently as tractable as he was simple, for when it was all explained to him, that I would go home at once and be back within half an hour, or forty minutes at the most, with my bank-book, that then we would all three spend the afternoon and night together somewhere until the banks opened in the morning, he admitted that that was probably the best way out of it, that “papá” always had had a strong constitution after all, that the money must be properly placed before he returned home, and after drawing out and looking at the roll of seven thousand again and asking if we wanted him to count it to show that it was really that amount, to which the Porteño hastily protested and begged him to get it back into his pocket as soon as possible, he agreed to our plan. I was to catch a car home at once, get my bank-book, and return to them on that same corner.
There being no car in sight, I set off at a swift pace along the tram line. As I looked around to see if the car was coming, the two waved to me to come back. I rejoined them, and the countryman again begged me not to say a word to anyone about the matter, since it was entirely a problem between his father and his conscience. I quieted his almost tearful fears by assuring him that I lived all alone, that I had scarcely a friend in Buenos Aires, and that I was naturally of a most taciturn disposition. As I turned away again, the townsman took a few steps after me and murmured in my ear, “If you will bring along your rings and jewels, too, that will help to win his confidence.” I assured him I would bring every piece of jewelry I possessed, and hurried off once more down the street car line.
A couple of blocks beyond, where the street curved and hid my friends from view, I turned a corner. A man who seemed to have been peering out from behind it asked me if I knew “those two persons.”
“No,” I answered, “we were merely passing the time of day.”
“But don’t you know esos son ladrones—those are thieves!” he cried.