Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/21

 once for all that my clerk never makes mistakes."

Don Abrahan crossed his gloved hands on his saddle-horn, and sat so a little while, head bent in consideration, it might be, of the infallible clerk aboard that lifting ship.

"Your mayordomo accepted payment for them hides accordin' to our count of 'em," the captain pursued. "That settles the matter, as far as I'm concerned. I'd like to have these, but if you're not satisfied with the way I do business you can drive off. There's your stuff down there to pay for this lot. Take it or leave it. That's me!"

Still Don Abrahan considered the situation. Shrewd as the captain believed himself to be, crafty at a bargain as he undoubtedly was, and great as the profit between what he gave and what he received, he was only a crude and inelegant savage compared with the finesse of Don Abrahan. There were peones on Don Abrahan's great ranch who labored three months for a pair of those Boston-made shoes which the sailors were unloading from the boat. His pose of consideration was but acting. He wanted it to appear that he yielded only after solemn deliberation, foregoing much that a man should stand for because a squabble and contention in the Yankee way was beneath him.

It might be a fitting thing to his dignity to order Simon to turn and drive away with the load of hides; it might put the blustering pirate of a Yankee in his place, cause him to leap and dance, shout