“Was it chewed by the mice, señor? You had been letting it grow very long.”
“Not as long as your clacking tongue,” was the crisp retort. “Shall I cut it for you?”
The barber goggled at the slender youth in the chair, but held his peace. It was not good to jest too far with one whose voice was so cool and hard.
CHAPTER XVIII
RUBIO SANCHEZ FINDS FRIENDS
In the American bar of The Broadway Front, the mahogany counter ran the length of the room. Mirrors glittered behind it. Here was a shrine of Bacchus, extinct in its native land, in which the rites of the ritual were faithfully observed. The presiding genius was a florid Irish bartender in a crisp white jacket with a flower in the lapel. Assisting him were three acolytes native to Panama. For them the lowly service of pulling the shining handles of the beer-pumps, cracking ice and washing glasses. With the skill of an artist and the speed of a prestidigitator, their master hurled cocktails, fizzes, and punches together and served them to the votaries who rested one foot upon the brass rail in the traditional posture of those about to offer libations.
Women were excluded from this room. Across the hallway was the café, the dancing-floor, the stage where entertainment more frivolous was provided. The mahogany bar and the little tables were sacred to the wit and wisdom of the sterner sex, to the discussion of weighty matters to which Mike, the paragon of bartenders, would always lend a sympathetic ear. He was a friend and philosopher of a vintage much riper and rarer than the stuff he sold.
Alone at one of the tables sat a pensive young man of delicate features whose black hair was smoothly parted. At this moment he was reminding himself that his name was Rubio Sanchez. He sipped a claret lemonade through a straw and eyed the passing show with a trepidation not easily dissembled.
The bar was crowded—American soldiers from the Canal Zone garrisons hilariously rolling the dice for the drinks, tanned bluejackets from ships of the Pacific Fleet, dapper Panama merchants, brisk Yankee salesmen spreading the gospel of safety razors, sewing machines, and porous underwear from Mexico to Peru, solid master mariners and mates who held aloof from the rabble of landsmen.
The solitary young man, Rubio Sanchez, was unmolested. No one even noticed him. The sense of panicky uneasiness diminished. He perceived that it was urgently advisable for him to make the acquaintance of Mike, the suave and genial divinity behind the bar. He was the very man to have stowed away the garrulous gossip and confidences that were forever dinned at him. The place was repellent to young Rubio Sanchez, but not as shocking as had been feared.