They started as if the skies had opened, dropped their stones, and crept very much diminished after the see-sawing bull-calf.
An ancient crone appeared at the window with a plate of chopped-up young cactus leaves, for three centavos. Kate didn’t like cactus vegetable, but she bought it. An old man was thrusting a young cockerel through the window-bars.
“Go,” said Kate, “into the patio.”
And she shut her window on the street, for the invasion had begun.
But it had only changed doors.
“Niña! Niña!” came Juana’s voice. “Says the old man that you buy this chicken?”
“At how much?” shouted Kate, slipping on a dressing gown.
“At ten reales.”
“Oh, No!” said Kate, flinging open her patio doors, and appearing in her fresh wrap of pale pink cotton crêpe, embroidered with heavy white flowers. “Not more than a peso!”
“A peso and ten centavos!” pleaded the old man, balancing the staring-eyed red cock between his hands. “He is nice and fat, Señorita. See!”