“The rogue will cajole him!” murmured Fray Bartolomeo, shaking his head.
“Such an interest, good cousin,” said Diego enthusiastically, at the same time chuckling to think how he was like to escape.
Martin Alonzo bent a singular look upon him and turned to the friar.
“He hath a quick wit and a turn for languages, you say?”
“Both.”
“But to-day he hath purloined a melon, flouted one of the brothers, broken the bounds, seduced his comrades into evil, and perhaps hath done other things not yet known.”
“Oh,” whined Diego, immediately cast down, “if you cannot be satisfied with what is known!”
“And,” went on Martin Alonzo, “you say he hath been a sore trouble in the past and that you have felt yourself unequal to the task of fittingly punishing him.”
“Even so, Martin Alonzo,” admitted the friar.
“And you wish for him, now, a punishment that shall be a warning to him?”