'
"'For what you say, I thank you,' he answered. 'My faults are more
numerous than the spots on the wild cat, but not amongst them is
precipitancy.'
"'That is what I like,' said I; 'for I do not love to go about like
a drunk man embracing strangers. But our acquaintance is not of
yesterday, for we have looked into and know each other, even to the
bowels and to the marrow in the bones. Why, then, should we meet as
strangers, since we have never had a difference, or any occasion to
speak ill of each other?'
"'And how should we speak ill,' replied Manuel, 'since it has never
entered into either of us, even in a dream, to do the other an injury?
Some there are, who, loving me badly, would blow up your head like a
bladder with lies if they could, laying I know not what things to my
charge, when--heaven knows--they themselves are perhaps the authors
of all they so readily blame me for.'
"'If you speak,' said I, 'of the cattle I have lost, trouble not
yourself about such trifles; for if those who speak evil of you, only
because they themselves are evil, were listening, they might say, This
man begins to defend himself when no one has so much as thought of
drawing against him.'
"'True, there is nothing they will not say of me,' said Manuel;
'therefore I am dumb, for nothing is to be gained by speaking. They
have already judged me, and no man wishes to be made a liar.
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