t Losada
should be called upon to state whether or not he acknowledged the note
as his own, and if he did, that he should be compelled to pay the amount
by seizure of his goods, or go to prison. My master and his friend the
attorney were employed in this business. One of the thieves took them to
the lodgings of the other, who at once acknowledged his note of hand,
admitted the debt, and offered his horse in satisfaction of the amount.
My master was greatly taken with the animal, and resolved to have it if
it should be sold. The time prescribed by the law being expired, the
horse was put up for sale; my master employed a friend to bid for it,
and it was knocked down to him for five hundred reals, though well worth
twelve or thirteen hundred. Thus one thief obtained payment of the debt
which was not due to him, the other a quittance of which he had no need,
and my master became possessed of the horse, which was as fatal to him
as the famous Sejanus[62] was to his owners.

[62] The successive owners of this animal were Seius, Dollabella,
Cassius, and Anthony. The first of them was executed, the rest committed
suicide.

The thieves decamped at once; and two days afterwards my master, after
having repaired the horse's trappings, appeared on his back in the Plaza
de San Francisco, as proud and conceited as a bumpkin in his holiday
clothes. Everybody complimented him on his bargain, declaring the horse
was worth a hundred and fifty ducats as surely as an egg was worth a
maravedi. But whilst he was caracolling and curvetting, and showing off
his own person and his horse's paces, two men of good figure and very
well dressed entered the square, one of whom cried out, "Why, bless my
soul! that is my horse Ironfoot, that was stolen from me a few days ago
in Antequera." Four servants, who accompanied him, said the same thing.
My master was greatly chopfallen; the gentleman appealed to justice,
produced his proofs, and they were so satisfactory that sentence was
given in his favour, and my master was dispossessed of the horse. The
imposture was exposed; and it came out how, through the hands of justice
itself, the thieves had sold what they had stolen; and almost everybody
rejoiced that my master's covetousness had made him burn his fingers.

His disasters did not end there. That night the lieutenant going his
rounds, was informed that there were robbers abroad as far as San
Julian's wards. Passing a cross-road he saw a man running