“He!” cried the fat man sitting on the wall.
One could see that he was a business man; for he had the curt manner of the counting-house.
“He, Tomaso!” added the widow Navarro, in a shrill voice.
“Tomaso of the Mill.” And his face fell a little when the fat man produced a pocket-book and wrote the name down with a shaking hand. The action rather savoured of the police and the law, and Tomaso did not like it.
The stout man leant forward with his chin in the palm of his hand and reflected for some moments. He was singularly reflective, and seemed to be making a mental calculation.
“See here,” he said at length, looking at Tomaso with quick business-like eyes. He was beginning to recover his colour now. “See here, I am not going to give you money--between gentlemen, eh! such things are not done. You have saved my life. Good! You are a brave man, and you risked your neck for a perfect stranger! I happen to be a rich man, and my life is of some value. I came from Barcelona to Majorca on business--business with a good profit. If I had gone over there”--he paused, and jerked his thumb towards the blue and hazy space that lay below them--“the transaction would have fallen through. You have enabled me, by your prompt action, to return to Palma this evening and sign the papers connected with this affair. Good! You are therefore entitled to a commission on the profit that I shall make. I have reckoned it out. It amounts to ten thousand pesetas--a modest fortune, eh?”
Tomaso nodded his head. He had always known that it would come. The widow Navarro threw up her eyes, and in a whisper called the attention of her own special black-letter saint to this business. Rosa was glancing surreptitiously at Felipe, who, to do him justice, was smiling on the old man with much appreciation.
“You see what I am,” continued the man of business, tapping his exuberant waistcoat; “I am fat and I am sixty-seven. When I return to Palma, I shall notify to a lawyer that I leave to you, 'Tomaso of the Mill,' ten thousand pesetas, to be paid as soon after my death as possible. At Barcelona I shall put the matter into legal form with my own notary there.”
He rose from his seat on the wall and held out his thick white hand, which Tomaso took, and they shook hands gravely.