Monson roared
out and struck the door with his fist, and they disappeared. Three of
them went under the table.
Monson had to bend his head to enter, and his shaggy hair pressed
along the ceiling. He pulled some by their legs from under the table,
and one from a bench in a dark corner by the hair, whom he left
suddenly, for it was a woman, and the two others he hauled from a
closet.
"Bring us some more!" he shouted in Spanish, laughing uproariously.
"Aguardiente! Hoorah!"
I don't know, or forget, how he quieted them, but pretty soon we
were seven men about the table, and the woman was serving us with
"affectionate water." One of them, with the woman, was owner of the
house, and the others, it seemed, lived across the island. They had
heard Monson's laugh, and afterward, hearing and seeing nothing more,
they'd taken it to be ghosts and were afraid. They were fierce-looking
little men, but pleasant enough and simple-minded. "Doubtless,"
they said, "the senores were distinguished persons, who had come
on a ship and would buy tobacco." We arranged that the four,
who lived across the island, should come back in the morning with
their tobacco. So the four went away affectionate with aguardiente,
and we were left alone with the fifth.
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