Take an old man's advice, friend: show not your gold hereafter to strangers lightly, no matter how lightly you have come by it.

Good-night!" Guest for a moment hesitated whether to resent the old man's speech, or to let it pass as the incoherent fancy of a brain maddened by drink.
Then he ended the discussion by turning his back abruptly and continuing his way to the high-road.
"So!" said Pereo, looking after him with abstracted eyes, "so! it was only a fancy.

And yet--even now, as he turned away, I saw the same cold insolence in his eye.

Caramba! Am I mad--mad--that I must keep forever before my eyes, night and day, the image of that dog in every outcast, every ruffian, every wayside bully that I meet?
No, no, good Pereo! Softly! this is mere madness, good Pereo," he murmured to himself; "thou wilt have none of it; none, good Pereo.

Come, come!" He let his head fall slowly forward on his breast, and in that action, seeming to take up again the burden of a score more years upon his shoulders, he moved slowly away.
When he entered the fonda half an hour later, the awe in which he was held by the half superstitious ruffians appeared to have increased.
Whatever story the fugitive Miguel had told his companions regarding Pereo's protection of the young stranger, it was certain that it had its full effect.