"I'm not saying how much moonlight I used up, practicing out in the orchard when everybody else was asleep.

I reckon I've made that corkscrew five thousand times in the last three weeks!" "Where you belong," bantered Dade, "is on the stage.

You do love to create a sensation, better than any one I ever--" "Senors--" Diego came hurriedly out of the shadows behind them.

"The patron begs that you will honor his table by dining with him to-night.
In one little half-hour will he hope to see you; and Don Jose Pacheco will also be happy to meet the senors, if it is the pleasure of the senors to meet him and dine in his company.

The patron," added Diego, with the faintest suspicion of a twinkle in his pensive black eyes, "desires also that I shall extend to you the deep regret of the senora and the senorita because it will be impossible for them to be present." The three looked at one another, and in Bill's eyes dawned slowly the light of understanding.
"Tell the patron we are honored by the invitation, and that it gives us much pleasure to accept," Dade replied for the three of them, after a moment spent in swift, mental measuring of the situation.