“No,” he gravely returned. “You can make a loud noise with the nose when you snore or blow it in a handkerchief; but it has no door of communication with the brain. The things that are in the brain flow out by the mouth.”
“Very well,” said I, getting impatient, “call the mouth spigot, bung-hole, or what you like, and the nose merely an ornament on the cask. The thing is this: Doña Demetria has entrusted you with some liquor to pass on to me; now pass it, thick or clear.”
“Not thick,” he answered stubbornly.
“Very well; clear then,” I shouted.
“To give it to you clear I must give it off and not on my horse, sitting still and not moving.”
Anxious to have it over without more beating about the bush, I reined up my horse, jumped off, and sat down on the grass without another word. He followed my example, and, after seating himself in a comfortable position, deliberately drew out his tobacco-pouch and began making a cigarette. I could not quarrel with him for this further delay, for without the soothing, stimulating cigarette an Oriental finds it difficult to collect his thoughts. Leaving him to carry out his instructions in his own laborious fashion, I vented my irritation on the grass, plucking it up by handfuls.
“Why do you do that?” he asked, with a grin.
“Pluck grass? What a question! When a person sits down on the grass, what is the first thing he does?”
“Makes a cigarette,” he returned.
“In my country he begins plucking up the grass,” I said.