“Has he so?” said Sir Richard Pendragon. “That sounds like a deep rascal. I am convinced this accursed innkeeper has the eye of a picker and stealer.”
“I pray you, sir, not to accuse the poor man. I feel sure he would not stoop to such an act, and already he has been misused grievously.”
“Well, good Don, if you are clear as to his innocence—and I am not sure of it myself—and you really had this amount of money?”
“Oh yes, to be sure I had—it was my patrimony.”
“And it did not walk out of the inn of itself, and that black-eyed little wench has not touched it—and though she’s a rude quean I believe she would not—and there is no hole in your pocket—is it possible there is a hole in your pocket, good Don?”
“There is no hole in my pocket, sir.”
“And there is no cat or dog about the premises; and the innkeeper, by an odd chance—for he is the first of his kidney that is—is an honest man—you have either mislaid your purse, good Don, you never had it, or as you lay asleep you must have dreamed of fortune and have swallowed it.”
Although the Englishman’s gravity was so admirable, it helped me but little; and when I got on my knees to creep all over the ground to seek for my treasure, and met all manner of filth by the way, he too began poking about with the point of his sword, yet met with no better success than did I.
“It is a case for a physician,” he said, “for a man to dream of fortune, and in the unnatural excitation of his mind to swallow all his money.”
“I know not what to do,” said I miserably. “I have not a groat to take me to Toledo.”