Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/240

 220 "It will be two reals" (twenty-five cents) "the night, as you see it," said the proprietor, waving a hand in an interior bare of furniture.

"Ah! two reals the night!"

"But perhaps the gentleman would desire also a bed, a wash-stand, and a looking-glass?"

"Yes, let us say a bed, wash-stand, and looking-glass."

"Then it will be four reals the night."

The larger Tlaxcalan ally, who had had nothing to do, established a claim for services by offering praise of each successive article of furniture as it was brought in, as, ''"Muy buena cama, señor!" " Muy bonito espejo!"''—"A very fine bed, señor!" "A very charming mirror, señor!"—and the like.

Now, all this is all exactly as it happened, and one should hardly be compelled to spoil a good story by adding to it. Yet this appearance of amusing stupidity is dissipated, after all, by remembering the methods of travel in the country. Many, or most, journeys are made on horseback, and the guest is likely to want only a room where he can lock up his saddle and saddle-bags and sleep on his own blankets, or, if luxurious, on a light cot, carried with other baggage on a pack-mule. This is all the accommodation provided at the general run of the mesones.

At the Fonda y Cafe de la Sociedad I supped, by the light of two candles, with a gentleman in long riding-boots, who had a paper-mill in the neighborhood. He told me that he had learned the business at Philadelphia. He was of a friendly disposition, and declared that I was to consider him henceforth my correspondent, so far as I might have need of one, on all matters, commercial and `