ly soon enough to conceal the paper before Ramon
turned back from his errand.

The next five minutes were to me hours of strained and bewildered
waiting. I addressed one or two remarks to my companion, but received
always monosyllabic answers. Twice I caught the flash of lanterns beyond
the darkened window; and a subdued, confused murmur as though several
people were walking about stealthily. Except for this the night had
again fallen deathly still. Even the cheerful frog had hushed.

At the end of a period my host returned, and without apology or
explanation resumed his seat and took up his remarks where he had left
them.

The girl disappeared somewhere between the table and the sitting room.
Old Man Hooper offered me a cigar, and sat down deliberately to
entertain me. I had an uncomfortable feeling that he was also amusing
himself, as though I were being played with and covertly sneered at.
Hooper's politeness and suavity concealed, and well concealed, a bitter
irony. His manner was detached and a little precise. Every few moments
he burst into a flurry of activity with the fly whacker, darting here
and there as his eyes fell upon one of the insects; but returning always
calmly to his discourse with an air of never having moved from his
chair. He talked to me of Praxiteles, among other things. What should an
Arizona cowboy know of Praxiteles? and why should any one talk to him of
that worthy Greek save as a subtle and hidden expression of contempt?
That was my feeling. My senses and mental apperceptions were by now a
little on the raw.

That, possibly, is why I noticed the very first chirp of another frog
outside. It continued, and I found myself watching my host covertly.
Sure enough, after a few repetitions I saw subtle signs of uneasiness,
of divided attention; and soon, again without apology or explanation, he
glided from the room. And at the same instant the old Mexican servitor
came and pretended to fuss with the lamps.

My curiosity was now thoroughly aroused, but I could guess no means of
satisfying it. Like the bedroom, this parlour gave out only on the
interior court. The flash of lanterns against the ceiling above reached
me. All I could do was to wander about looking at the objects in the
cabinet and the pictures on the walls. There was, I remember, a set of
carved ivory chessmen and an engraving of the legal trial of some
English worthy of the seventeenth century. But my hearing was alert, and
I tho