He looked after the man as he went out the door, and sighed heavily.
"Ah, I knew them well when I was young, the brown maidens of the Zincali! They are wine to kiss and soft silk to caress, but the very tigers when aroused. But I am getting on now—getting on and too old for such thoughts!"
He looked down at the receipt in his hand. He started.
"Dios hombre!" he ejaculated.
The policemen crowded around him. But he had recovered.
"It is nothing," he said.
He went back to his desk. There, for a long time, slyly and secretly he eyed the receipt the man had given him. Upon it was written:
"Received payment, Jacinto Quesada."
Very stealthily, the desk sergeant tore the paper into a thousand little bits.