Ambrosio went back to the drawing-room, and Antoñito, coming very close, slapped Manuel familiarly on the shoulder:
"Manuel, dear, kind Manuel, my good little old boy, who is it that thinks a great deal of you? And how do you manage always to be so good and so even-tempered?"
"Señorito Antoñito is always so funny!"
"Ah, but if you don't help Señiorito Antoñito out of the scrape he is in, he is going this very night to blow his brains out at the viaduct!"
"Lord Jesus! do not offend God! What is the matter?"
And thereupon, in whispered, hurried accents, Antoñito made a speech full of falsehoods and tremendous phrases, the purport whereof was simply that Manuel must give him twenty duros before midnight.
"Twenty duros! Señor Dios!" ejaculated Manuel, who hailed from Navarre, "I was expecting something of this kind." Why, what ails you all? And, look you, Señorito Antoñito, I swear to you that I have but twenty duros in my trunk. And if you knew, if you only knew—but you do not wish to know! Welladay! I'll go fetch them to you. But when will you, dear kind señorito, give them back to me?"
"Oh, tomorrow or the next day! Run and get them. Are they in one note or separate?"
"They are separate. But what difference does that make?"
"Never mind! I know what I'm talking about. Go!"
