“How much you pay?”
“How much do you want, for the two days?”
“What you pay?”
“What do you usually charge?”
“How much you pay? I can’t be buyer and seller, too.”
“I don’t know how much these things cost in this country,” Hi said.
“Well, what you give, see?”
Hi produced his peseta notes and small change, to which the woman made an emphatic gesture that this was child’s play.
“Well, how much, then?” Hi asked.
A tall, lean man had come silently into the room behind Hi; he had taken up his position facing Hi, with his back against the table. He was picking his teeth with a sprig of macilente, which he chewed. Hi did not like the fellow’s looks. He had almost no brow; his hair and eyebrows merged into each other. Under this shag, the man’s eyes were very black; his face was hungry-looking, with pale, sunken cheeks. The mouth was greedy-looking or wolfish, although it split into a smile over the toothpick. The teeth glittered; they looked evil, being pointed and inclined inward, something like snakes’ fangs. His ear-rings glittered at each bite upon the sprig. There was a glittering about the man’s person, apart from ear-rings and teeth, because his waistcoat was buttoned up to the throat with some thirty small globular silver buttons.