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48 the arm. Lefty himself had been gazing at the girls, his ugly face, with its upthrust brows, more like a pug's than ever.

Stone turned to meet Healy and Castro, a fat, jovial, heavy-paunched man with an olive complexion.

"Buenos noches, senores," he said to Stone and Lefty. "Frens of Señor Healy are frens of mine. We shall have a leetle touch together? Si? To cleenk the glass an' weesh you buena ventura. For some mus' win, an' I like it should be the frens of my fren. Porque no?"

He sat them at a table and a girl brought to his nod and sign of three fat fingers three long glasses filled with an aromatic liquid.

"For myself you mus' excuse," he said. "The night is jus' begin an' I mus' dreenk often. So, I take now a cigar. But you, you weel like the Pisco punches. From mescal, señors. In one there is courage, inspiration, but dreenk no more. After one, sweetch to wheesky. For, to dreenk three Piscos is, they say, to go home and keel the mother-in-law. Wheech may be also a good theeng. Quien sabe?" And his stomach quivered as he laughed at the crude jest.

Stone noticed the girl as she set the glasses down with long, tapering fingers tipped with nails that were beautifully kept. Her arms, bare from the elbow, were exquisitely rounded and the skin seemed soft and smooth as the petal of a white flower. Her face was oval, daintily but haughtily poised upon a