"Well, here's regards!" he said at last, and his lower jaw trembled with eagerness. Perez drank and I made the motions.
"That's the stuff!" says Sax, with a cheap swagger that knocked me harder than anything I'd seen so far. "The good old truck that you Spaniards mollify under the name of aguardiente is the solution of all problems, Perez."
"Si, si, Señor?" says Perez. "It is a great solvent." He stirred the red sugar in the bottom of his glass. "I have seen it dissolve many a good manhood—like that."
"None of your friends, I hope?" sneers Sax.
"I hope not."
Saxton looked at him a minute; a hundred different fits showed in his eye, but the hurry of his mind let none stay long enough for action.
The shadow settled on him again. I never in my life saw more misery in a human face, and to save me I couldn't tell you where the expression came from, because the man kept his muscles in an iron grip. There wasn't a droop of the mouth, nor a line in the forehead, nor a twitch of the eye—it was just powerful enough to make itself felt, without signs.
He came back again with a snap.
"Why, you're not drinking, Bill!" says he, noticing my glass. It was not Arthur Saxton, to urge a boy to drink.
"No," I says, easy, "I'm not used to tropical beverages—I expect to find it full of red peppers. Lord, what a dose I got in my first chile con carne—"