— Here is the bill. For your honor — and he divided the bill deliberately — 650 piasters. And for the senhorita, 3,830 — and ten centimes.

And why the ten centimes?

I rose. The restaurant's radio was playing a swing number, and my knees shook so hard that the accursed waiter observed that they were keeping time with the tune. I sent him off to fetch me a packet of cigarettes and slipped away toward the manager of the restaurant, and told him my tale; he all but wept for sorrow... — or for fright, that the pledge I was going to give would not be enough. He said:

— My dear sir, these things happen very often. It is your good luck that you came into a restaurant whose proprietors treat people with entire consideration. Allow me a word of advice, my friend: never again go about with a girl of the "gymnastics" kind!! Then a glance of his fell upon my wrist and he cried out: Ah, what a beautiful watch! Is it not gold?

A few minutes later I was with my companion outside the Elite restaurant. The miraculous two-thousand note was still in my pocket, but my watch was with the manager of the restaurant. And my companion admired the film, and loved it!

Is there anything in the world she does not love?

Next morning I signed a note of hand at the establishment where I worked and hurried off to "release" the pawned watch. At noon I came into the house a "tower of wrath," and gave no one a greeting.

The telephone rang, and my sister answered.

— Alfredinho! The telephone is for you, and the voice is a young lady's voice... you chief of pirates!!

I took the telephone, smiling for the first time in twenty-four hours.