“You may arrange it that way, if you like. Your quarrel is a distinct one, and I’ve nothing to do with it—having my own hands full. Indeed, if they were empty, I’m not so sure I should be your second—talking as you do. However, that’s not the purpose now. In answer to your first question, I can only say what I’ve said before. I not only intend fighting this Crozier, but killing him. True, I may fail in my intention; if so, there’s an end of it, and of me. For, once on the ground, I don’t leave it a living man, if he do. One or both of us shall stay there, till we’re carried off—feet-foremost.”
“Carramba! your talk gives one the trembles. It’s not pleasant to think of such things, let alone doing them.”
“Think your own way, and welcome. To me it would be less pleasant to leave them undone; less now, than ever in my life. After what I’ve gone through, I don’t care much for character—in truth, not a straw. That’s all stuff and pretension. Money makes the man, and without it he’s nothing; though he were a saint. Respectability—bah! I don’t value it a claco. But there’s a reputation of another kind I do value, and intend to preserve. Because in my world it counts for something—has counted already.”
“What is that?”
“Courage. Losing it, I should lose everything. And in this very city of San Francisco, I’d be only a hound where I’m now a hunter; barked at by every cur, and kicked by every coward who choose to pick a quarrel with me.”
“There’s no danger of that, Don Francisco. All who have had dealings with you know better. There’s little fear of any one putting a slight upon you.”
“There would be, if I refused to fight this fellow. Then you’d see the difference. Why, Faustino Calderon. I couldn’t sit at our monté table, and keep the red-shirts from robbing us, if they didn’t know ’twould be a dangerous game to play. However, it isn’t their respect I value now, but that of one very different.”
“Of whom?”
“Again you ask an idle question; so idle, that I don’t believe you care a straw for Iñez Alvarez—or know what love is.”
“What has she to do with it?”