“You Americans are not honest,” went on the Spaniard. “You lie, cheat and steal, always pouring the pesetas or dollars into your pockets, and laughing at the more simple more honest people of other nations from whom you derive your dishonest profits. Nowhere do you find easier victims than the old-fashioned, simple, trusting, generous, honest Spaniards.” “Of whom I suppose you are one?” “Of whom,” repeated Vasquez, sadly, “I am one.” Hal could not keep back the burst of laughter that sprang to his lips. “Why do you laugh?” demanded Vasquez, angrily. “Because you have duped me so easily?” “Because you have duped yourself so easily,” retorted Hal, with spirit. “You vaunt your honesty, you who have never earned an honest dollar in your whole career. You, a simple, trusting man, when you cannot look back upon a single month in twenty years when you have not used the fear of fire or the assassin’s knife to inforce the payment of exorbitant claims against Americans who were new to the island! When you look into your own heart, Vasquez, can you blame me for laughing at your pretenses?” But Hal did not laugh now. His voice rang with a scorn and contempt that were too deep for merriment. “Your employer owed me money,” went on Vasquez, plaintively. “He has paid you far more than he ever owed you. That I know from the dealings I have had between you. As near as I could place it, you have robbed him, in three years, of at least twenty thousand dollars more than you were entitled to. Yet you prate about honesty!” “He owes me two thousand dollars,” insisted the Spaniard, doggedly. “Senor Richardson escaped from Cuba yesterday, and left me sighing in vain for my money. I find that you have collected, within the last twenty-four hours, money of his enough to pay me. Yet you refuse to turn it over to me.” “Of course I refused,” voiced Hal. “I should have been false to my trust if I had paid over my employer’s money without authority from him.” “And that is why I call you dishonest,” cried Vasquez. “You have conspired, you two, to defraud me of my money.” “You didn’t conspire to have me sent to Morro Castle, did you?” sneered Maynard. “Now,” resume the Spaniard, ignoring all the inconvenient points in Hal’s reply, “I have stated fully my grievance against you. Do not think, you Yankee pig, that you can hope to dupe me any longer. You are now dealing with a Spaniard of honor!” Vasquez drew himself erect and puffed his chest out as if he believed his vainglorious boast. Halting suddenly before the boy, he glared at Hal with burning eyes, and demanded, with a pause after each word: “Where--is--that--money?” “I don’t know.” “Yet you had it.” “Certainly?” “Then what did you do with it?” “I shall never tell you,” retorted Hal, with spirit. Now Vasquez’s passion escaped all bounds. “Oh, you Yankees! Oh, you thieves!” he declared, violently, pacing the room like a caged hyena. “You hope to dupe us, even when you are in our power.”