"_Buenos tardes, amigo,_" he murmured. "How do you seat yourself?"
"Very well, much thanks. And you? How have they treated you?"
"Delicious. Superlative thanks. I have longed to see you again."
"And your family? How are they?" (It is considered more delicate in Mexico not to ask about one’s wife, because so few people are married.)
"Their health is of the best. Great, great thanks. And your family?"
"_Bien, bien_! I saw your son with the army at Jimenez. He gave me many, many remembrances of you. Would you desire a cigarette?"
"Thanks. Permit me, a light. You are in Valle Allegre many days?"
"I hope your visit is fortunate, señor. My house is at your orders."
"Thanks. How is it that I did not see you at the _baile_ last night, señor? You, who were always such a sympathetic dancer!"
"Unhappily Juanita is gone to visit her mother in El Oro, and now, therefore, I am a _platonico_. I grow too old for the señoritas."
"Ah, no, señor. A _caballero_ of your age is in the prime of life. But tell me. Is it true what I hear, that the Maderistas are now at Mapimi?"
"_Si_, señor. Soon Villa will take Torreon, they say, and then it is only a matter of a few months before the Revolution is accomplished."
"I think that, yes. But tell me; I have great respect for your opinion. Which cock would you advise me to bet on?"
We approached the combatants and looked them over, while their owners clamored in our ears. They sat upon the curbing negligently herding their birds apart. It was getting toward three of the afternoon.
"But will there be a cock-fight?" I asked them.
The other murmured that possibly it would be _mañana_. It developed that the steel spurs had been forgotten in El Oro, and that a small boy had gone after them on a burro. It was six miles over the mountains to El Oro.
However, no one was in any hurry, so we sat down also. Appeared then Catarino Cabrera, the saloon keeper, and also the Constitutionalist _jefe_ politico of Valle Allegre, very drunk, walking arm in arm with Don Priciliano Saucedes, the former _jefe_ under the Diaz government. Don Priciliano is a fine-looking, white-haired old Castilian who used to lend money to the peons at twenty per cent. Don Catarino is a former schoolmaster, an ardent Revolutionist—he lends money at a slightly less rate of usury to the same parties. Don Catarino wears no collar, but he sports a revolver and two cartridge-belts. Don Priciliano during the first Revolution was deprived of most of his property by the Maderistas of the town, and then strapped naked upon his horse and beaten upon his bare back with the flat of a sword.