"Anything clever or graceful that occurs to you in French, you may say to Madame Steele if you like, but you must speak English to me. There's the gong for dinner."
At the table I am placed at the Captain's right. My friends had given him special charges about me, and in a rough, kind-hearted way he shows me every attention. On my right sits a Guatemalan, Señor José Noma, then Mrs. Steele, and beside her, Baron de Bach. Opposite is an army officer, Captain Ball, and his wife, and several Mexicans. I feel a little unsteady and disinclined to eat, but the Baron sends me, by the Chinese waiter, a glass of champagne frappé—and my courage and interest in life return.
The Guatemalan proves to be a rich coffee planter exiled from home for political reasons, and returning now after an absence of several years to make his peace with the government. Señor José Noma is a clever, entertaining person, and one thing about him I am not likely to forget. He ate more chili-peppers, more mustard, more pickled chow-chow, more curry, and more cayenne pepper than I would have believed any mortal could dispose of and live.
I used to wonder whether his diet had any share in making him such a flaming firebrand of rebellion that he must needs be sent North to cool off! I am convinced, at least, that had he not drunk a generous amount of wine he must inevitably have been scorched to a cinder. He was always passing me his favourite dainties and urging upon me garlic, and some particularly awful and populous cheese. I was especially impressed in this, my first intercourse with a Spanish-speaking race, by their invincible habit of paying compliments, and yet their inability to convince even an unsophisticated person like myself that they meant one word they were saying.
The afternoon I devote to Mrs. Steele in our airy, pleasant stateroom. She is not exactly ill, but wants to lie down and to be read to. So we begin the "Conquest of Mexico." Towards evening I emerge from retirement, and Baron de Bach drops from somewhere at my side.
"Gude-efening, Mademoiselle. You haf us long deserted."
I explain that my friend is not well.
"But she vill make you ill vhen you stay inside. I vill tell her."
"In French it may be safe, but don't attempt it in English."
He looks mystified.