"Oh, it's that, is it? Any relation to the Carámbas of Dutch Flat? It ain't a pretty name. I like Johnny better. And I wouldn't make a row here now. Not to-day, Johnny; it's Sunday. I'd go home. I'd go quietly home, and I'd beat some woman or child to keep myself in training. But I'd go home first. I wouldn't draw that knife, neither, for it might cut your fingers, and frighten the folks around town. I'd go home quietly, like a good nice little man. And in the morning I'd come round to the hotel on the next square, and I'd ask for Mr. Hamlin, Mr. Jack Hamlin, Room No. 29; and I'd go right up to his room, and I'd have such a time with him—such a high old time; I'd just make that hotel swim with blood."
Two or three of the monte players had gathered around Victor, and seemed inclined to take the part of their countryman. Victor was not slow to improve this moment of adhesion and support.
"Is it dogs that we are, my compatriots?" he said to them bitterly; "and he—this one—a man infamous!"
Mr. Hamlin, who had a quick ear for abusive and interjaculatory Spanish, overheard him. There was a swift chorus of "Carámba!" from the allies, albeit wholesomely restrained by something in Mr. Hamlin's eye which was visible, and probably a suspicion of something in Mr. Hamlin's pocket which was not visible. But the remaining portion of Mr. Hamlin was ironically gracious.
"Friends of yours, I suppose?" he inquired, affably. "'Carámbas' all of them, too! Perhaps they'll call with you? Maybe they haven't time and are in a hurry now? If my room isn't large enough, and they can't wait, there's a handy lot o' ground beyond on the next square—Plaza del Toros, eh? What did you say? I'm a little deaf in this ear."
Under the pretence of hearing more distinctly, Jack Hamlin approached the nearest man, who, I grieve to say, instantly and somewhat undignifiedly retreated. Mr. Hamlin laughed. But already a crowd of loungers had gathered, and he felt it was time to end this badinage, grateful as it was to his sense of humour. So he lifted his hat gravely to Victor and his friends, replaced it perhaps aggressively tilted a trifle over his straight nose, and lounged slowly back to his hotel, leaving his late adversaries in secure but unsatisfactory and dishonourable possession of the field. Once in his own quarters, he roused the sleeping Pete, and insisted upon opening a religious discussion, in which, to Pete's great horror, he warmly espoused the Catholic Church, averring, with several strong expletives, that it was the only religion fit for a white man, and ending somewhat irreverently by inquiring into the condition of the pistols.
Meanwhile Victor had also taken leave of his friends.
"He has fled—this most infamous!" he said; "he dared not remain and face us! Thou didst observe his fear, Tiburcio? It was thy great heart that did it!"
"Rather he recognised thee, my Victor, and his heart was that of the coyote."
"It was the Mexican nation, ever responsive to the appeal of manhood and liberty, that made his liver as blanched as that of the chicken," returned the gentleman who had retreated from Jack. "Let us then celebrate this triumph with a little glass."