ents and the positions that they hold, neither the
Senor Conde de Rios nor Mendoza are remembering to make good to me the
money that I have been spending for them."

"Have you spoken to them?"

"I have written a letter to each of them. Mendoza did not reply; the
Senor Conde, after the lapse of considerable time, tells me in a letter,
which I have with me, and you can see, 'that the very serious political
duties that weigh upon him do not permit him at present to attend to
such things as these, which have for some time been intrusted to his
former private secretary, Senor Mendoza y Pimentel.' Of course, as you
very well know, I have no need of begging from door to door for what is
my own. And so, without further delay, I have come directly to you."

"Why did you not go to Mendoza first?"

Eguiburu hung his head, and began to twirl his hat; at the same time he
smiled much as a marble statue might have done if it had the power.

"Senor de Mendoza seems to me to have very little flesh for my claws!"

On hearing these words, and seeing the smile that accompanied them,
Miguel felt a chill run down his back, and he made no reply. At the end
of a few moments he looked up, and said in a firm voice:--

"In other words, you have come to dun me for those thirty thousand
duros! Is that so?"

"I feel it in my soul, Senor de Rivera ... be convinced that I really do
... for it is certainly not to be gainsaid that you have not _eaten
them_."

"Thanks! you have a sensitive spirit, and I congratulate you on it.
Unfortunately I cannot reciprocate this delicacy of feelings by handing
over the thirty thousand duros."

"Very well; but you will hand them over!"

"Have you any security for it?"

Eguiburu lifted his head, and fixed his little blue eyes on Miguel, who
looked at him in a cool and hostile manner.

"Yes, senor," he replied.

"Then I congratulate you again; I did not know that you could have it."

"Don't you remember, Senor de Rivera," said the banker, with amiability
exaggerated in order to palliate the unpleasant effect that his words
were about to produce, "I have here a paper endorsed with your name?"

And as he said this he raised his hand to his overcoat pocket.

Again Miguel kept silence. At the end of a few moments he spoke in a
voice in which could be detected anger scarcely repressed:--

"That is to say, Senor de Eguiburu, that you propose nothing else than
to ruin me on account of a debt, which, as is