"What! this in the face of day?" "Oh yes; those things are managed coolly enough here, Mr Brail. They are now on their way to the coast, where a vessel is doubtless lying ready to carry them over to Jamaica, and to bring them back when they have laid out their money in goods. See there, those sumpter mules are laden with their bags of doubloons; when they return to Batabano, with the assistance of my friend Juan Nocheobscuro there, and some of his gang, their goods will soon be in the tiendas, or shops of Havanna, to the great injury of the fair trader who pays duties, I will confess--and I hope the evil will soon be put down; but there it is for the present as you see it." "But how comes Listado to know so many of the tailor-looking caballeros?" "They are all customers of ours," said he, "who only resort to Jamaica occasionally, and are mostly shopkeepers themselves, or have partners who are so." "And our excellent Irish friend himself, may I ask, who is he--is he your partner?" "No, no," said M----, "he is not my partner, but he is connected with most respectable Irish correspondents of mine, who consign linens and other Irish produce largely to my establishment, and for whom I load several ships in the season with sugar and coffee; so Monsieur Listado, who is rich since his father's death (he was the head of the firm), has been sent by the Irish house to superintend the sales of the outward cargoes, under my auspices, and to take a sort of general charge of shipping the returns; but," continued he, laughing, "as you see, he does not _kill_ himself by the intensity of his application to business. He is a warm-hearted and light-headed Irishman,--one who would fight _for_ his friend to the last, and even with him for pastime, if no legitimate quarrel could be had. We had a little bother with him at first, but as I know him now, we get on astonishingly; and I don't think we have had one single angry word together for these six months past, indeed never since he found out from my letter-book that I had once done an essential mercantile service to his father, in protecting a large amount of his bills drawn while he was in New York, when dishonoured by a rascally agent at that time employed by him here. But who comes?" Who indeed, thought I, as no less a personage than Lennox himself brought up the rear, on a stout mule, in his dingy suit of sables; cutting a conspicuous figure amongst the gaudily dressed Dons. He paced steadily past us, and when I bid him good-by, he merely touched his hat and rode on. Presently the whole cavalcade was out of sight, and nothing else occurred until we arrived at Havanna, and I found myself once more comfortably lodged under Mr Duquesné's hospitable roof.