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40 have never penetrated. I should like to see him employed about this business."

"He would take care to provide himself with fire arms, that he refuses to us," said one of the corchetes, who appeared the coolest of the party, "for criminals and malefactors are not in the habit of carrying the arms we do, and the person whom we have been ordered to protect will perhaps experience it this night to his cost."

"What the devil!" said the alcalde, "when one knows that he runs the risk of getting a dagger into him at night, why does not he stay at home?"

"There are some scamps whom nothing frightens," replied one of the corchetes; "but, as the Evangelist says, 'he who seeks the danger shall perish in it.'"

"What o'clock may it be now?" asked the auxiliary.

"Four in the morning," answered one of the men; and, raising his eyes to the window behind which I was concealed, he added, "I envy those people who pass the night so merrily in that tertulia." Talking thus, the celadores walked along the brink of the canal. All at once the auxiliary at their head stumbled in the darkness. At that moment a man sprang up and stood before the patrol.

"Who are you?" cried the alcalde, in a voice meant to be imposing.

"What's 'that to you?" replied the man as haughtily. "Can't a man sleep in the streets without being questioned?"

"One sleeps at home as—as—much as possible," stammered the alcalde, evidently frightened.

The person thus caught acting so much like a vagabond gave a shrill whistle, and, pushing the alcalde