The peon started. Don Gil stood facing him. His eyes were blazing. Rotiro's arm twitched with the desire to reach for his machete.
"If I ever find you—" Don Gil spoke slowly and impressively, his forefinger moving up and down in time with his words—"if ever I find you opening a letter of mine, either a letter that I send or one that I receive, I will send you to Saltona, and I shall ask the alcalde to put you in the army."
Rotiro's knees developed a sudden weakness. He would much rather be led to the wall outside the town, turned with his face towards its cold grey stone, and have his back riddled with bullets. At least, so he thought at the moment.
"The Seño' will never find me opening a letter, either now or at any other time." (Nor will he. Does he think that I should be so stupid as to open them before his face? Or within two and a half miles of the Casa de Caoba?)
"Very well, then. Be off with you. Take your gun out of my counting-house and your colino out of my doorpost, and yourself out of my sight."
"The Seño' Don Gil allow that I accommodate myself with a little ching-ching?"
"Always ching-ching, Rotiro. Bieng, bieng! Tell Alfredo to give you a half-glass, not of the pink rum—that is not for such as you. You remember, perhaps, what happened the last time that I gave you a ching-ching. I should have said No."
"I assure the Seño' that Garcito Romando was a worthless man. O, yes, Seño', an utterly worthless man—an entirely useless man. He could not plant the suckers, he could not plant the cacao, he could not drive four bulls at a time; there was no place for Garcito Romando either in heaven or in hell. Marianna Romando was weary of him. Purgatory was closed to him, and the blessed island was too good for him. He stole three dollars Mex. of me once. My e'copeta did, perhaps, go off a little early, but the Seño' should thank me. He has on his finca one bobo the less, and the good God knows—"
Rotiro was not only fluent, he was confluent. He ran his words together in the most rapid manner.
Don Gil raised his hand as if to ward off the storm of words. "He was certainly a fool to tamper with a man whose gun shoots round the corner. Come! Be off with you! Three fingers, and no more."