This excellent meal was washed down with a few mouthfuls of Catalonian refino, with which the soldier appeared amply provided.
All was terminated with the indispensable cigarette, that obligato complement of every Hispano-American meal, and the two men, revived by the good food with which they had lined their stomachs, were soon in an excellent condition to open their hearts to each other.
"You seem to me a man of caution, Caballero," the American remarked, as he puffed out an immense mouthful of smoke, part of which came from his mouth, and part from his nostrils.
"It is a reminiscence of my old hunter's trade. Soldiers generally are not nearly so careful as I am."
"The more I observe you," John Davis went on, "the more extraordinary does it appear to me that you should have consented to take up a profession so badly paid as that of a soldier."
"What would you have? It is fatality, and then the impossibility of sending the uniform to the deuce. However, I hope to be made a Cabo before the year's out."
"That is a fine position, as I have heard; the pay must be good."
"It would not be bad, if we received it."
"What do you mean?"
"It seems that the government is not rich."