Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/449

Rh A fluent English-speaking German—interpreter for the hotel—assured us that the "Casa de las Diligencias" was the best house, and we soon found ourselves in a grand old convent, with corridors lined with gorgeously blooming plants, while the cleanly spread tables reminded us that we had left Mexico without breakfast.

The camarista, with long black hair à la pompadour, keen, beady eyes and rigid lips, presented himself to register us in a book and enroll us on the big bulletin. We ordered separate rooms, and, gathering up our luggage, he preceded us and placed all our chattels in one apartment.

"But the other room—where is it?" I asked.

"You have two beds," he answered.

"Well, but we also want two rooms," I rejoined.

Snapping his eyes, and drawing his lips more closely than ever, he muttered in a long-drawn half whisper: "Dos cuartos y cuatro camas por dos señoritas Americanas solitas! Valgame Dios!" ("Two rooms and four beds for two senoritas alone!") Then, letting his voice fall still lower, he continued: "Que cosa curiosa!" ("What a curious thing!") This man of business had evidently made up his mind that one room with two beds was the proper thing for dos señoritas Americanas solitas. The point of difference being duly settled by the administrador, we were gratified to find in our rooms no printed rules, and that he with the pompadoured hair would have no occasion to announce, like the other camaristas, “Falta Jabon y cerillos" as both soap and matches were bountifully supplied.

It was the carnival season; and from our windows we had views of ludicrous rag-tag processions parading up and down, grotesque enough to call forth smiles from a Niobe. Before my window, in a pretty house with red-tiled front, I saw a señorita, from behind a gay