g it to me, eh? Well, take this...."

A heavy blow sent the waiter reeling to the floor.

"That's the sort of man I am, General Macias! I'm clean-shaven, eh? Not
a hair on my chin? Do you know why? Well, I'll tell you! You see I get
mad easy as hell; and when there's nobody to pick on, I pull my hair
until my temper passes. If I hadn't pulled my beard hair by hair, I'd
have died a long time ago from sheer anger!"

"It does you no good to go to pieces when you're angry," a man affirmed
earnestly from below a hat that covered his head as a roof does a
house. "When I was up at Torreon I killed an old lady who refused to
sell me some enchiladas. She was angry, I can tell you; I got no
enchiladas but I felt satisfied anyhow!"

"I killed a storekeeper at Parral because he gave me some change and
there were two Huerta bills in it," said a man with a star on his hat
and precious stones on his black, calloused hands.

"Down in Chihuahua I killed a man because I always saw him sitting at
the table whenever I went to eat. I hated the looks of him so I just
killed him! What the hell could I do!"

"Hmm! I killed...."

The theme is inexhaustible.

By dawn, when the restaurant was wild with joy and the floor dotted
with spittle, young painted girls from the suburbs had mingled freely
among the dark northern women. Demetrio pulled out his jeweled gold
watch, asking Anastasio Montanez to tell him the time.

Anastasio glanced at the watch, then, poking his head out of a small
window, gazed at the starry sky.

"The Pleiades are pretty low in the west. I guess it won't be long now
before daybreak...."

Outside the restaurant, the shouts, laughter and song of the drunkards
rang through the air. Men galloped wildly down the streets, the hoofs
of their horses hammering on the sidewalks. From every quarter of the
town pistols spoke, guns belched. Demetrio and the girl called War
Paint staggered tipsily hand in hand down the center of the street,
bound for the hotel.

II

"What damned fools," said War Paint convulsed with laughter! "Where the
hell do you come from?..... Soldiers don't sleep in hotels and inns
any more....... Where do you come from? You just go anywhere you like
and pick a house that pleases you, see. When you go there, make
yourself at home and don't ask anyone for anything. What the hell is
the use of the revolution? Who's it for? For the folks who live in
towns? We're the city folk now, see? Come on, Pa