"A night is soon spent. I only ask a shelter for horse and self."
"Well, if you will permit me to act in my turn as guide, you shall have that within ten minutes."
"Agreed."
"I do not promise you a palace, but I will take you to a pulquería, where I am accustomed to put up when accident brings me to these parts. You will find the society rather mixed, but what would you have? And, as you said yourself, a night is soon spent."
"In Heaven's name, then, proceed."
Then, passing his arm through that of his comrade, the new guide seized the horse's reins, and steered to a house standing about two-thirds of the way down the street where they were, whose badly fitting windows gleamed in the night like the stoke holes of a furnace, while cries, laughter, songs, and the shrill sound of the jarabes, indicated that, if the rest of the pueblo were plunged in sleep, there, at least, people were awake.
The two strangers stopped before the door of this pothouse.
"Have you quite made up your mind?" the first said.
"Perfectly," the other answered.
The guide then rapped furiously at the worm-eaten door. It was long ere anyone answered. At length a hoarse voice shouted from inside, while the greatest silence succeeded, as if by enchantment, the noise that had hitherto prevailed.