to get rich these days!" the barber Cupido
would say when don Matias came up for discussion.

Little by little the man had worked his way into the orange export
business--to England especially. His first stock he bought on credit;
and at once Fortune began to blow upon him with bloated cheeks, and she
was still puffing and puffing! His wealth had been accumulated in a few
years. In crises where the most powerful vessels foundered, that rude
and heavy bark, sailing on without chart or compass, suffered not the
slightest harm. His shipments always arrived at the psychological
moment. The fancy, carefully-selected oranges of other merchants would
land at Liverpool or London when the markets were glutted and prices
were falling scandalously. The lucky dolt would send anything at all
along, whatever was available, cheap; and circumstances always seemed to
favor him with an empty market and prices sky-high regardless of
quality. He realized fabulous profits. He had nothing but scorn for all
the wiseacres who subscribed to the English papers, received daily
bulletins and compared market quotations from year to year, getting, for
all their pains, results that made them tear their hair. He was an
ignoramus and he was proud of it! He trusted to his lucky star. Whenever
he thought it best, he would ship his produce off from the port of
Valencia, and--there you are!--it would always turn out that his oranges
found no competition on arrival and brought the highest prices. More
than once it had happened that rough weather held his vessel up.
Well--the market would sell out, and his shipment would have a clear
field just the same!

Within two years he had a place in town and had become a "personage." He
would smilingly declare that he wouldn't "go to the wall for under
eighty thousand _duros_." Later, ever on the wing, his fortune reached
dizzy heights. Folks whispered in superstitious awe the figures he made
in net profits at the end of every sailing. He owned warehouses as
large as churches in the vicinity of Alcira, employing armies of girls
to wrap the oranges and regiments of carpenters to make the crates. He
would buy the crop of an entire orchard at a single glance and never be
more than a few pounds off. As for the pay he gave, the city was proud
of its millionaire. Not even the Bank of Spain enjoyed the respect and
confidence his firm had won. No clerks and cashiers! No mahogany
furniture! Everything above board! Ask for a h