“Business?” murmured the girl.  “Ah!  That word frightens me—­I am so ignorant.”

“Your first lesson shall not tire or dismay you,” promised Don Luis, gently.  “Now, place your chair close beside mine, and look over this ledger with me.  I shall not attempt to make you comprehend too much at first.”

With pencil and paper beside the ledger, Don Luis read off many items.  Occasionally he did some figuring on the sheet of paper, as though to make the matters more clear to his daughter.  She made a very pretty picture, trying to follow her father’s explanations, but the perplexed wrinkling of her brow showed how hard it was for her to do so.

The figures that Don Luis took from his ledger all tended to show the immensity of the wealth already produced from El Sombrero.  Tom and Harry listened courteously, for they had been invited to join the group.

“You are tired, chiquita,” said her father, at last.  “I have taken you too far on our first excursion into the realm of finance.  This morning we will have no more figures.  But here is something that cannot fail to interest you in parts at least.”

Shoving aside the ledger, Don Luis drew from a drawer a bulky document.

“This is the report which Senor Reade prepared for me yesterday,” Montez explained, looking at the young engineers for an instant.  “The report is written in English, as I desired it written so.  But I will read the most interesting parts in Spanish to you, chiquita.  You will observe that this report is a masterpiece of business composition.”

“I am sure that it must be,” murmured Francesca, and Tom bowed his thanks.

“This report, too, is a part of your fortune,” continued Don Luis.  “That is, it will help to make your fortune, for it concerns El Sombrero, one of the finest parts of your fortune.  We have been planning, these caballeros and I, that they shall remain in my employ indefinitely, and they are to be paid better and better if they serve you through me and serve us well.  I shall reward them as an hidalgo ever rewards.”

“I do not need to be told that my father is generous when he is pleased,” murmured Francesca.

“Listen, then, to what Senior Reade has written.  It cannot help but give you much pleasure.”

“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.