"The launches, man, the launches. Don't you see them?"
"I see nothing," returned Gonzalo, fixing his eyes on the horizon.
"You are just as you were; you see nothing but the soup in your plate," said the uncle, with a sarcastic smile.
The Café de la Marina was already full of people. The clatter of conversation and disputes, the clink of the glasses, the ring of the domino pieces on the marble table, made a deafening noise. The place was situated in the small square formed by the junction of the Rua Nueva with the harbor, and one side of the house looked on to the sea. Most of the captains and pilots who stopped at Sarrio on their cruises resorted thither, as did the majority of the residents, who, without being sailors, had a partiality for what was maritime.
The entrance of our friends was hailed with delight from different tables. Don Melchor was the most popular and the most highly respected frequenter of the café.
He had to greet all the assembled company, and take Gonzalo up to each of them.
The jolly fellows were all delighted with the young man, and wrung his hand almost to dislocation, while they were eager and hearty in their offers of a glass of wine or maraschino; and when this was refused on the plea of taking coffee upstairs, a profound gloom overspread their countenances.
As a matter of fact, Don Melchor was accustomed to have his coffee in the small saloon, which was a room on the first floor of the house, communicating with the café by an iron staircase, which the uncle and nephew finally ascended.
There the chief residents of the town were congregated, seated on a circular sofa, with little Japanese tables in front of them, on all of which coffee was served.
Through one of the doors, which was generally left open, could be seen the billiard room, where the same people always played, with the same on-lookers. When Don Melchor and his nephew entered a project was in course of discussion for keeping the poor women who sell vegetables and milk from intemperance.