"Nay then, Rodrigo," said his friend incredulously, and looking alternately from the laughing accuser to the half-troubled accused. The face of neither tended in any way to relieve the notary's curiosity. "Speak out, man," he said at last. "With what is it that you charge the lad?" "With what I say," replied de Escobar with another laugh. "With playing the surgeon unauthorized, Children and monkeys are all alike--they must needs imitate what they see others doing; and consequently, one of those monkey-children yonder got hold of my hammer awhile since, and of course contrived to hammer its own fingers pretty sharply." "Terribly!" broke in Montoro impulsively, forgetting his temporary shyness in the recollection of his pity. "The poor little creature, my señor, has hammered his fingers perfectly black, and the poor ignorant mother could only cry over it, and do nothing; and so--and so--" And so, and so Montoro Diego once more grew shy as his own part in the business drew to the fore, and came to a stammering conclusion, and Diego Mendez with a smile took up the tale. "And so, and so then, my friend, I suppose you do really confess that Don Rodrigo de Escobar has laid only true things to your charge, and that you have thought, by adding your ignorance to the woman's ignorance, to make one wisdom. Hey, my modest young friend, then is it so?" Montoro looked up now, with flushed cheeks it is true, but with some returning boldness also, as he replied sturdily-- "My ignorance, at any rate, my señor, has had this good result--that the child no longer cries. But if you would spare me yet another five minutes, I would fain return to him, just to make my bandages more secure than I left them in my haste upon your call." "Come then, have your way," said his new patron good-humouredly. "I confess I am not a little curious to see what sort of surgery you have evolved from that daring head of yours, and whether it be not a gag in the squaller's mouth that has produced this peacefulness." But there was no gag in the small redskin's smiling mouth, neither, assuredly, was there one in the mouth of the small redskin's mother, who poured forth a perfect torrent of incomprehensible words as she alternately kissed Montoro's feet and her child's injured hand, or rather the great bundle of wet leaf-poultice in which it was most scientifically enveloped. "Umph!" muttered Diego Mendez, as he looked at the bound-up limb and the grateful mother. "And pray how hast thou come by thy skill, my friend? Is St. Luke thy patron saint, and has he instructed thee?" "My mother has been my teacher," was the quiet answer. "And she had much learning of many various uses to mankind, from her father." The notary cast a keen glance of sudden intelligence at his companion, and then said slowly--