Page:The reign of greed (1912).pdf/299

 "I don't believe in the pasquinades," declared a workman, lank and withered from operating the blowpipe. "To me it looks like Padre Salvi's doings.

"Ahem, ahem!" coughed the silversmith, a very prudent man, who did not dare to stop the conversation from fear that he would be considered a coward. The good man had to content himself with coughing, winking to his helper, and gazing toward the street, as if to say, "They may be watching us!"

"On account of the operetta," added another workman.

"Aha!" exclaimed one who had a foolish face, "I told you so!"

"Ahem!" rejoined a clerk, in a tone of compassion, "the affair of the pasquinades is true, Chichoy, and I can give you the explanation."

Then he added mysteriously, "It's a trick of the Chinaman Quiroga's!"

"Ahem, ahem!" again coughed the silversmith, shifting his quid of buyo from one cheek to the other.

"Believe me, Chichoy, of Quiroga the Chinaman! I heard it in the office."

"Nakú, it's certain then," exclaimed the simpleton, believing it at once.

"Quiroga," explained the clerk, "has a hundred thousand pesos in Mexican silver out in the bay. How is he to get it in? Very easily. Fix up the pasquinades, availing himself of the question of the students, and, while everybody is excited, grease the officials' palms, and in the cases come!"

"Just it! Just it!" cried the credulous fool, striking the table with his fist. "Just it! That's why Quiroga did it! That's why—" But he had to relapse into silence as he really did not know what to say about Quiroga.

"And we must pay the damages?" asked the indignant Chichoy.

"Ahem, ahem, a-h-hem!" coughed the silversmith, hearing steps in the street.