I have said that Rodriguez seldom concerned himself with the past,
but considered chiefly the future: it was of the future that he
was thinking now as he asked Morano this question:
"Why did my worthy and entirely excellent host shut his door in my
face?"
"Did he so?" said Morano.
"He then bolted it and found it necessary to put the chains back,
doubtless for some good reason."
"Yes," said Morano thoughtfully, and looking at Rodriguez, "and so
he might. He must have liked you."
Verily Rodriguez was just the young man to send out with a sword
and a mandolin into the wide world, for he had much shrewd sense.
He never pressed a point, but when something had been said that
might mean much he preferred to store it, as it were, in his mind
and pass on to other things, somewhat as one might kill game and
pass on and kill more and bring it all home, while a savage would
cook the first kill where it fell and eat it on the spot. Pardon
me, reader, but at Morano's remark you may perhaps have exclaimed,
"That is not the way to treat one you like." Not so did Rodriguez.
His attention passed on to notice Morano's rings which he wore in
great profusion upon his little fingers; they were gold and of
exquisite work and had once held precious stones, as large gaps
testified; in these days they would have been priceless, but in an
age when workers only worked at arts that they understood, and
then worked for the joy of it, before the word artistic became
ridiculous, exquisite work went without saying; and as the rings
were slender they were of little value.
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