Juan encountered the aggressive señorita sooner than he had calculated. Evidently the many rooms and openings on the floor had confused her, and she had lost her bearings. And now as she was retracing her steps, no doubt in the hope of finding the private stairway which led to a door opening onto the back lawn, she faced Juan before either was aware of the presence of the other.
The invincible señorita was equal to the emergency, but Juan fell over against a wall, trembling and frightened, and prayed that she would pass him unobserved.
Again he was doomed to disappointment, for instead of passing him unobserved, or if observed, hurrying by him in the hope of escaping without being detected, the very instant she saw him she walked bravely up, and slapping him on the shoulder, said:
“Hello, Juan. You seem to have been on guard all night, or else something unusual has happened to get you up at this early hour. Come, Juan, you are my friend; let me into your secret. I mean, of course, the secret of the household.”
“Well,” replied Juan, with some spirit, as he pushed her hand off his shoulder and moved away from her, “you seem to know more about this house than I do.”
“Ha! ha! Juan,” laughed the señorita. “Ha! ha! there are tricks in all trades, and by the time you have lived through five existences and remember everything in each life and take advantage of your learning, you will know more about some things than some other people who do not remember. Ha! ha! Juan, why don’t you drink some of your master’s ‘Memory Fluid’—a gallon or so, to start on? Ha! ha! That ‘Liquid from the Sun’s Rays’ is wonderful! It could not be otherwise, as his Honor is such a wonderful man. But come, Juan, tell me where he is. In which room? And see, this is for your trouble.” She held up a twenty-dollar gold coin, which shone brightly in the dim light of the early morning. “A twenty-dollar gold coin cannot be picked up every moment, Juan. Do you know a good thing when you see it?”
“See me; do you, miss, see me? Well, I will stand here until I starve to death, or am killed, before I would tell you anything about his Honor’s affairs, if you offered me ten times that amount of money. I don’t need any money. I have plenty to eat and wear. But I haven’t time to stand here in his Honor’s private bedrooms talking to a lady at this early hour in the morning or at any other hour of the day.”
“Well, well, amigo, you are a loyal servant. I only wanted to know if his Honor has recovered from the fright I gave him a few days ago. I really do not recall to mind the exact date,” persisted Miss Motuble.
To which Juan replied: “The Governor is not so easily frightened as you seem to imagine. You never frightened him; you simply overpowered him by means of your superior physical force.”
“Whew!” was the surprised beginning of Miss Motuble’s reply. “Whew! think of this great logician living all these years in Chihuahua and until this moment undiscovered. I have done humanity a great act of kindness by coming up here, even if my original object in coming was what the physical world calls villainous.”