"What's that to you?" replied the man as haughtily. "Can't a man sleep in the streets without being questioned?"
"One sleeps at home as—as—much as possible," stammered the alcalde, evidently frightened.
The person thus caught acting so much like a vagabond gave a shrill whistle, and, pushing the alcalde aside, ran down a neighboring lane. To my great surprise, the alcalde and the celadores, like men who dread a snare, instead of following him, ran off in quite an opposite direction. Almost at the same moment a hand was laid on my shoulder. I started and turned about. Perico and my host stood before me.
"That whistle sounds wonderfully like the call of my chum Navaja, when out on an expedition," cried the former, stooping to peer through the window, while the latter, with bleared eyes, his legs tottering like a man who had too conscientiously fulfilled his duties as master of the house, offered me a glass of liquor, that his shaky hand allowed to run over. Then, with the irritability peculiar to drunkards,
"One may say, señor," said he to me, "that you despise the society of poor people like us; you don't play, you don't drink; yet, in certain cases of conscience, gambling and brandy give great relief. Look at me now! To gratify my friends, I have eaten and drunk what I have and what I haven't: well, I am happy, although I don't possess a tlaco in the world; and, if you like, I will play with you for my child's body! It is a stake," continued he, in a confidential tone, "which is as good as another, for I can let it out, and well too, to some lover of a velorio."
"Play for the body of your child!" I cried.
"Why not? That is done every day. Every body hasn't the good fortune to have an angel aloft, and the body of this dear little one brings luck here."
I got rid, as well as I could, of the entreaties of this tender-hearted father, and cast my eyes once more into the street, but the approaches to the canal were now silent and deserted. I was not long, however, in discovering that this quiet, this solitude, were only apparent. Some strange, vague sounds escaped now and then from one of the lanes leading to the canal. Presently I fancied I heard the crunching of unsteady steps on the gravel. With my body leaning over the balcony, and listening intently, I waited for the moment when the awful stillness would be broken by some cry of anguish. The sound of voices, loud in dispute, again drew my attention to the room on which my back was turned. The orgie was this moment at its height. The Zaragate, surrounded by a group of angry gamblers, whose suspicions had been roused by his run of good luck, was trying, but in vain, to wrap around him the shreds of his olive cloak, which had been torn into ribbons by the furious hands of his adversaries.
The most stinging epithets were launched against him from all sides.
"I am a man of substance," cried the fellow, impudently, "as much as those whose uncivil hands have torn to tatters the handsomest cloak I ever possessed."