nother handed him
three slices of dark bread. Cogan thanked them, but the monks seemed not
to hear. He thanked them again, at which one monk, looking up, set a
finger to his lips and motioned him to step aside for the next.

"Cogan finished his breakfast, thanked the native for the loan of the
cup, and started to look around. He first tried to find the park where
he had left Tommie, but there were so many parks with trees and flowers
and fountains in them! He crossed a bridge over a river that must have
come tumbling all the way from the top of the Andes, it had such a head
of speed on. He patrolled he did not know how many streets, and at last
gave up hunting for Tommie, on whose account, anyway, he wasn't
worrying, for he knew that Tommie, an experienced old sailor man, had by
this time laid his course for the Consul's and been taken care of. He
sat on a bench at the curbstone in front of a fruit store to think
things over. It was a comfortable seat, except that every time a trolley
passed he had to lift his feet high so he wouldn't be swept off his
perch.

"As he sat there, a group of well-muscled, well-set-up young fellows
passed him. It was a cool, cheerful morning, and they appeared to be
full of play. Everybody did that morning in Lima. Cogan knew these at
once for some sort of athletes. They seemed to be well known to the
store-keepers and the small boys along the street. Their hair, or what
he could see of it, was clipped close. Not handsome men all, but all in
high favor. Girls flung back light words at them, or tapped them on the
arm in passing. Two girls pinned roses on the coats of two of them, who
took it all as though they were used to it. 'Big leaguers of some kind,'
thinks Cogan, and asked the fruit-stand keeper who they were, and the
fruit-seller said 'Torero.'

"'Torero? Torero?--Ah-h-h'--Cogan recalled his 'Spanish Without A
Master'--'Ah-h-h, of course, Toreros--Toreadors'--he remembered the
opera 'Carmen'--bull-fighters. Cogan got up and followed them.

"If Cogan had never seen a bull-ring, he would right away have known
this in Lima for one. It was a perfect circle, about two hundred feet
across, packed with what looked like hard sand and surrounded by a stout
stockade, and with seats enough for eight or ten thousand people. The
bull-fighters had not minded when he followed them in, and now he took a
seat on the empty benches and watched them at practice. They had a bull,
a lively one, but a we