"Señora," he said gravely. "Ef I am you I don' worry very much about those boy. Before hee's pretty parteecular. All those hightone' señorita in El Toro she give eet the sweet look to Don Miguel, jus' the same like thees———" Here Pablo relaxed his old body, permitted his head to loll sideways and his lower jaw to hang slackly, the while his bloodshot eyes gazed amorously into the branches of the catalpa tree. "But those boy he don' pay some attention. Hee's give beeg smile to thees señorita, beeg smile to thees one, beeg smile to that one, beeg smile for all the mama, but for the querida I tell to you Don Miguel hee's pretty parteecular. I theenk to myself—Carolina, too—'Look here, Pablo. What he ees the matter weeth those boy? I theenk mebbeso those boy she's goin' be old bach. What's the matter here? When I am twenty-eight años my oldes' boy already hee's bust one bronco'." Here Pablo paused to scratch his head. "But now," he resumed, "by the blood of those devil I know sometheeng!"
"What do you know, you squidgy-nosed old idol, you?" Parker demanded, with difficulty repressing his laughter.
"I am ol' man," Pablo answered with just the correct shade of deprecation, "but long time ago I have feel like my corazon—my heart—goin' make barbecue in my belly. I am in love. I know. Nobody can fool me. An' those boy, Don Miguel, I tell you, señor, hee's crazy for love weeth the Señorita Kay."
Parker crooked his finger, and in obedience to the summons Pablo approached the bench.
"How do you know all this, Pablo?"
Let us here pause and consider. In the summer of 1769 a dashing, care-free Catalonian soldier in the company of Don Gaspar de Portola, while swashbuckling his way around the lonely shores of San Diego Bay, had encountered a comely young squaw. Mira, señores! Of the blood that flowed in the veins of Pablo Artelan, thirty-one-thirty-seconds was Indian, but the other one-thirty-second was composed of equal parts of Latin romance and conceit.
Pablo's great moment had arrived. Lowly peon that he was, he knew himself at this moment to be a most important personage; death would have been preferable to the weakness of having failed to take advantage of it.
"Why I know, Señor Parker?" Pablo laughed briefly, lightly, mirthlessly, his cacchination carefully designed to convey the impression that he considered the question extremely superfluous. With exasperating deliberation he drew forth his little bag of tobacco and a brown cigarette paper; he smiled as he dusted into the cigarette paper the requisite amount of tobacco. With one hand he rolled the cigarette; while wetting the flap with his garrulous tongue, he gazed out upon the San Gregorio as one who looks beyond a lifted veil.
He answered his own question. "Well, señor—and you, señora! I tell you. Por nada—forgeeve; please, I speak the Spanish—for notheeng, those boy he poke weeth hee's thumb the rib of me."
"No?" cried John Parker, feigning profound amazement.