Para hacer tu testamento.'
"'How do you do, Mr. Gruel?
I fear you are rather unwell;
I've taken a mighty long journey
To ring your funeral knell.'
That's how it goes, Don Estevan. There's a great deal more of it; they go on arguing ever so long. We must get him in some time and make him repeat it all for you."
"You're most kind, I'm sure," said the American, wondering in himself the while how any human being could be amused by such a rigmarole concerning Messrs. Coffee and Atole. But there was no accounting for tastes; and he had found out that American humour did not seem at all funny to Mexican ears, while his recent experience in blasting the ditch had taught him that the mildest of American jokes might send red Indians on the war-path. A difference in the sense of humour goes down to the very roots of our nature.
They had finished dinner by this time, and the American, declining a cigarette, filled his pipe, and rising went over to his saddle and extracted from the "cantines" the packet which had come for him by mail. He brought this over to his host and offered it to him.
"Here, señor," said he, "is a little bag I will beg you to accept. It is from Denver; it contains some seed of alfalfa, that clover I told you about, that grows so splendidly in California and Colorado."
The Mexican was warm in his thanks as he untied the bag and took a sample in his hand.