At least, in all probability he would be able to conduct the remainder of his work with a dry skin—he might not see another deluge in the early night during his whole stay in San Juan.
He fervently hoped so, at least.
Crossing the public square he dodged into a certain dingy and crooked lane that took him to the most desolate and God forsaken locality within the city walls.
There are such places in Paris, London, New York—why not in San Juan?
All cities, whether of ancient Babylonian days or of the present enlightened age have had their plague spots as well as their palatial quarters, and so it must be while rich and poor go hand in hand, down to the end of time.
Only in San Juan the squalor seemed to be a little more pronounced than anything Roderic could imagine outside of Havana, where the wretched reconcentradoes were dying of hunger by thousands.
The war was partly to blame, he knew—that and the natural savage instinct which prevails so strongly among Spanish speaking people, and induces them to always go to extremes, whether in love or conflict.
Picking his way along in this delectable neighborhood Roderic finally gave utterance to an eager exclamation—his eyes had fallen upon the little whitewashed cabin for which he had been on the qui vive.
Another moment and his fist was beating a tattoo upon the door, a summons that was loud enough to arouse the dead—from within a movement was heard, and then the door opened cautiously a few inches. Roderic uttered some talismanic words in Spanish that brought a delighted exclamation from the hut's occupant—a brown hand reached out and when the door closed it shut out the awful clamor of the storm, for the Yankee had found a warm reception within the walls of old San Juan.