“Don’t call me that,” murmured the old man, patting Quentin’s hand. “Have you learned to speak English?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But, well?”
“I speak it as well as I do Spanish.”
“English is very hard,” said the hunchback, who had seated himself upon the floor. “Yes means yesca (tinder); verigüel means muy bien (very well), and as for the rest—when you can say, ‘I catch, I go, I say’—you know English.”
“Hush, Colmenares,” said the Marquis, “don’t be a fool.”
“You’re more of a fool than I am,” replied the dwarf.
The old man, paying no attention to him, said to Quentin:
“I already know, I already know that you have not been up to any more foolishness.”
The hunchback burst into noisy laughter.