Humorous stories; Love stories; Running races -- Fiction; Western stories
Turning to the trainer, Carara eyed him from top to toe, removed
his cigarette, and flipped the ashes daintily from it; then,
smiling disdainfully, said:
"_Buenos dias, Senor Fat!_"
Glass started. "You talkin' to me?"
"Yes." Carara leaned languidly against the wall, took a match
from his pocket, and dextrously struck it between the nails of
his thumb and finger. He breathed his lungs full of smoke and
exhaled it through his nose. "I would have spik to you biffore,
but the Senor Fat is"--he shrugged his shoulders--"frighten' so
bad he will not understan'. So--I come back."
"Who's scared?" said Glass, gruffly.
Carara turned his palm outward, in gentle apology.
"You been talk' a gret deal to my Senorita--to Mariedetta, eh?"
"Oh, the Cuban Queen!" Glass winked openly at Speed. "Sure! I
slip her a laugh now and then."
"She is not _Cubana_, she is _Mexicana_," said Carara,
politely.
"Well, what d'you think of that! I thought she was a Cuban."
Glass began to chuckle.
"Senor Fat," broke in the Mexican, sharply, while Larry winced at
the distasteful appellation, "she is _my_ Senorita!"
"Is she? Well, I can't help it if she falls for me." The speaker
cast an appreciative glance at his employer. "And you can cut out
that 'Senor Fat,' because it don't go--" Then he gasped, for
Carara slowly drew from inside his shirt a long, thin-bladed
knife bearing marks of recent grinding, and his black eyes
snapped. His face had become suddenly convulsed, while his voice
rang with the tone of chilled metal. Glass retreated a step, a
shudder ran through him, and his eyes riveted themselves upon the
weapon with horrified intensity.
"Listen, Pig! If you spik to her again, I will cut you." The gaze
of the Mexican pierced his victim. "I will not keel you, I will
just--cut you!"
Speed, who had sat in open-mouthed amazement during the scene,
pinched himself. Like Larry, he could not remove his gaze from
the swarthy man. He pulled himself together with an effort,
however, undertaking to divert the present trend of the
conversation.
"W--where will you cut him?" he asked, pleasantly, more to make
conversation than from any lingering question as to the precise
location.
"Here." Carara turned the blade against himself, and traced a
cross upon his front, whereupon the trainer gurgled and laid
protecting hands upon his protruding abdomen. "You spik Spanish?"
"No." Glass shook his head.
"But you understan' w'at I try to say?"
"Yes--oh yes--I'm hep all right."
"And the Senor Fat will r-r-re-member?"
"Sure!" Glass sighed miserably, and tearing his eyes away from
the glittering blade, rolled them toward his employer. "I don't
want her! Mr. Speed knows I don't want her!"
Carara bowed. "And the Fat Senor will not spik wit' her again?"
"No!"
"_Gracias, Senor!_ I thank you!"
"You're welcome!" agreed the New Yorker, with repressed feeling.
"_Adios! Adios,_ Senor Speed!"
"Good-bye!" exclaimed the two in chorus.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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