He began an imitation of his old restlessness, and made essay
again to pull the strings of his affairs. They were, however, so confused
that a pull at one string tangled them all.
When the constables and others came to him, and said that they were on
the trail of the robber, and that the rogue would be caught, he nodded
his head encouragingly; but he was sure in his own mind that the flight
of Dolores would be as successful as that of Carmen and Zoe.
This is the way he put it: "That man--we will just miss finding him, as I
missed Zoe at the railroad junction when she went away, as I missed
catching Carmen at St. Chrisanthine. When you are at the shore, he will
be on the river; when you are getting into the train, he will be getting
out. It is the custom of the family. At Bordeaux, the Spanish detectives
were on the shore gnashing their teeth, when he was a hundred yards away
at sea on the Antoine. They missed him like that; and we'll miss him too.
What is the good! It was not his fault--that was the way of his bringing
up beyond there at Cadiz, where they think more of a toreador than of
John the Baptist. It was my fault. I ought to have banked the money. I
ought not to have kept it to look at like a gamin with his marbles. There
it was in the wall; and there was Dolores a long way from home and
wanting to get back.
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