So he stared while the homunculus letting his cloak fall about him, aspired an immense quantity of snuff out of the hollow of his palm.
"A mule," exclaimed Byrne seizing at last the real aspect of the discourse.

"You say he has got a mule?
That's queer! Why did he refuse to let me have it ?" The diminutive Spaniard muffled himself up again with great dignity.
"_Quien sabe_," he said coldly, with a shrug of his draped shoulders.
"He is a great _politico_ in everything he does.

But one thing your worship may be certain of--that his intentions are always rascally.

This husband of my _defunta_ sister ought to have been married a long time ago to the widow with the wooden legs." {188} "I see.

But remember that, whatever your motives, your worship countenanced him in this lie." The bright unhappy eyes on each side of a predatory nose confronted Byrne without wincing, while with that testiness which lurks so often at the bottom of Spanish dignity-- "No doubt the senor officer would not lose an ounce of blood if I were stuck under the fifth rib," he retorted.