“You beauty,” said Vickers, stopping for an instant as he crossed the hallway.
The macaw hunched his shoulders, shifted his feet on the perch, and said stridently,
“Dame la pata.”
“You betcher life!” said Vickers, thrusting his finger between the bars. The two shook hands solemnly, and Vickers went on his way to the dining-room, shouting at the top of a loud voice,
“Ascencion, almuerzo.”
An instant later he was being served with coffee, eggs, and a broiled chicken by an old woman, small, bent, wrinkled, but plainly possessed of the fullest vitality.
“And what are you going to give us for supper to-night?” Vickers asked, with his mouth full.
With some sniffing, and a good deal of subterranean grunting, Ascencion replied that she did not know what to give los Americanos unless it were half an ox.
“Ah, but the lovely señoritas,” said Vickers.
A fresh outburst of grunting was the reply. “Ah, the Señorita Rosita. I have already had a visit from her this morning. She comes straight into my kitchen,” said the old woman. “She expects to live there some day.”