“The story is neither long nor interesting,” responded Cuchillo; “what happened to me might happen to all the world. I was engaged with this friend in a quiet game of cards, when he pretended that I had tricked him. The affair came to words—”
Here the narrator paused for an instant, to take a drink from his leathern bottle, and then continued—
“My friend had the indelicacy to permit himself to drop down dead in my presence.”
“What at your words?”
“No, with the stab of a knife which I gave him,” coolly replied the outlaw.
“Ah! no doubt your friend was in the wrong, and you received great provocation?”
“The alcalde did not think so. He pestered me in the most absurd manner. I could have forgiven the bitterness of his persecution of me, had it not been that I was myself bitterly roused at the ill-behaviour of my friend, whom up to that time I had highly esteemed.”
“Ah! one has always to suffer from one’s friends,” rejoined Baraja, sending up a puff of smoke from his corn-husk cigarette.
“Well—one thing,” said Cuchillo, “the result of it all is that I have made a vow never to play another card; for the cards, as you see, were the original cause of this ugly affair.”
“A good resolution,” said Baraja, “and just such as I have come to myself. I have promised never to touch another card; they have cost me a fortune—in fact, altogether ruined me.”