"The shameless rascal!" Tom exclaimed, inwardly, as the trick
became clear to him. "Don Luis is trading upon our sympathies
for the girl in order to induce us to sign his lying report."

Don Luis began to read the report, translating into Spanish as
he went along. When he came to tables of tedious figures Montez
skipped over them hurriedly. He dwelt eagerly, however, on the
paragraphs of the report that asserted such vast wealth to exist
in _El Sombrero_. Francesca listened with rising color. Once
in a while she shot a pretty, sidelong glance at Tom to show her
pleasure over the report, the whole authorship of which she plainly
believed to belong to him.

"Why, it reads like a romance!" the girl cried, clapping her hands
when the reading had finished.

"A romance? Yes!" ground Tom, under his breath. "It is romance--pure
fiction and absurdly false in every line!"

"It must be a wonderful talent to possess, senor," said Francesca,
turning to Tom Reade. "A wonderful talent to be able to describe
a matter of business in such eloquent language."

"It is a rare gift," Tom admitted modestly, though he had a design
in what he was saying. "A rare gift, indeed, and one which I
must not claim. This is your father's report, not mine. He had
written it in English, and all I did was to copy it on the typewriter,
and to make the English stronger at points. So I am not the
author--merely the clerk."