The pair were at cross purposes before they had finished the wedding-cake. The woman wanted to take the command, but this did not suit Don Dinero, who was of an overbearing and haughty disposition. Why, sirs! my father (may glory be his rest!) used to say that if the sea were to get married he would lose his fierceness. But Don Dinero was more proud than the sea and did not lose his presumption. As both wished to be first and best, and neither would consent to be last or least, they determined to decide by a trial which of the two had the more power. "Look," said the wife to the husband, "do you see, down there in the hollow of that olive-tree, that poor man so discouraged and chop-fallen? Let's try whether you or I can do more for him." The husband agreed, and they went right away, he croaking, and she with a jump, and took up their quarters by the tree. The man, who was a wretch that had never in his whole life seen either of them, opened eyes like a pair of great olives when the two appeared suddenly in front of him. "God be with you!" said Don Dinero. "And with his grace's worship also," replied the poor man. "Don't you know me?" "I only know his highness to serve him." "You have never seen my face?" "Never since God made me." "How is that--have you nothing?" "Yes, sir; I have six children as naked as colts, with throats like old stocking-legs; but, as to property, I have only _grab and swallow_, and often not that." "Why don't you work?" "Why? Because I can't find work, and I'm so unlucky that everything I undertake turns out as crooked as a goat's horn. Since I married, it appears as though a frost had fallen on me. I'm the fag of ill-hap. Now, here--a master set us to dig him a well for a price, promising doubloons when it should be finished, but giving not a single _maravedi_[18] beforehand." "The master was wise," remarked Don Dinero. "'Money taken, arms broken,' is a good saying. Go on, my man." "I put my soul in the work; for, notwithstanding your worship sees me looking so forlorn, I am a man, sir." "Yes," said Don Dinero, "I had perceived that." "But there are four kinds of men, señor. There are men that are men; there are good-for-naughts; and contemptible monkeys; and men that are below monkeys, and not worth the water they drink. But, as I was telling you, the deeper we dug, the lower down we went, but the fewer signs we found of water. It appeared as if the centre of the world had been dried. Lastly, and finally, we found nothing, señor, but a cobbler." "In the bowels of the earth!" exclaimed Don Dinero, indignant at hearing that his ancestral palace was so meanly inhabited. "No, señor!" said the man deprecatingly; "not in the bowels; further on, in the country of the other tribe." "What tribe, man?" "The antipodes, señor." "My friend, I am going to do you a favor," said Don Dinero pompously; and he put a dollar in the man's hand.