"Let's get out of here," muttered Leandro after a short while. "This is too gloomy."
They walked to the Plaza del Progreso, Leandro with head bowed, as pensive as ever, and Manuel so sleepy that he could hardly stand.
"Over at the Marina café," suggested Leandro, "there must be a high old time."
"It would be better to go home," answered Manuel.
Leandro, without listening to his companion, walked to the Puerta del Sol, and the two very silently turned into Montera Street and around the corner of Jardines. It was past one. As the pair walked on, prostitutes in their gay attire accosted them from the doorways in which they lurked, but looking into Leandro's grim countenance and Manuel's poverty-stricken features the girls let them walk on, following them with a gibe at their seriousness.
Midway up the narrow, gloomy street shone a red lamp, which illuminated the squalid front of the Marina café.
Leandro shoved the door open and they went inside. At one end the platform, with four or five mirrors, glittered dazzlingly; the floor was so tightly jammed with rows of tables thrust against either wall that only a narrow passage was left in the middle.
Leandro and Manuel found a seat. Manuel rested his forehead against his palm and was soon asleep; Leandro beckoned to one of the two singers, who were gaily dressed and were conversing with some fat women, and the two singers sat down at his table.
"What'll you have?" asked Leandro.
"Canary-seed for me," answered one of them,—a slender, nervous type with small eyes that were ringed with cosmetics.