Desnoyers had been five years in the house when one day he entered his
master's private office with the brusque air of a timid person who has
suddenly reached a decision.
"Don Julio, I am going to leave and I would like our accounts settled."
Madariaga looked at him slyly. "Going to leave, eh? . . . What for?" But
in vain he repeated his questions. The Frenchman was floundering through
a series of incoherent explanations--"I'm going; I've got to go."
"Ah, you thief, you false prophet!" shouted the ranchman in stentorian
tones.
But Desnoyers did not quail before the insults. He had often heard his
Patron use these same words when holding somebody up to ridicule, or
haggling with certain cattle drovers.
"Ah, you thief, you false prophet! Do you suppose that I do not know
why you are going? Do you suppose old Madariaga has not seen your
languishing looks and those of my dead fly of a daughter, clasping
each others' hands in the presence of poor China who is blinded in her
judgment? . . . It's not such a bad stroke, Frenchy. By it, you would be
able to get possession of half of the old Spaniard's dollars, and then
say that you had made it in America."
And while he was storming, or rather howling, all this, he had grasped
his lash and with the butt end kept poking his manager in the stomach
with such insistence that it might be construed in an affectionate or
hostile way.
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