Five or six of the native officers were already in the mess-room, swallowing mild swizzles, and talking quietly. They greeted Hicks affectionately.
"This man," said Santosa, "had his horse looking like a shaving-brush, and I know nothing in English so suitable to call him as this," and he swore vigorously in Portuguese.
"Stow that rot," said Hicks, "can't you see I'm fit as a fiddle; and for Heaven's sake move some liquor my way, will you?" His request was speedily complied with, and he helped himself recklessly from the big decanter.
The dinner was long and hot, and Valentine Hicks, forgetting utterly his Harvard manner, dropped his head on the table, between his claret-glass and coffee-cup, and dreamed beastly dreams. The swarthy Brazilians talked and smoked, and sent away the decanters to be refilled. The stifling air held the tobacco smoke above the table. The cotton-clad servants moved on noiseless feet.
"These Americans,—dear heaven," spoke a fat major, softly.
"I am fond of Hicks," said Santosa, laying his hand on the youth's unconscious shoulder. A slim lieutenant, who had held a commission in a Brazilian regiment stationed in Rio, looked at the captain.
"The Americans are harmless," he said. "They mind their own business,—or better still, they let us mind it for them. The President—bah! And our dear Valentine. If he gets enough to eat, and clothes cut in the English way, and some one to listen to his little stories of how he used to play golf at Harvard, he is content. But this Englishman,—this Señor Hemming,—he is quite different."
"Did not you at one time play golf?" asked Santosa, calmly.
"Three times, in Florida," replied the lieutenant, "and with me played a lady, who talked at her ease and broke two clubs in one morning. She was of a fashionable convent named Smith, but this did not deter her from the free expression of her thoughts."
"Stir up Señor Hicks, that we may hear two fools at the same time," said the colonel.