“I am in debt,” was the old man’s whimper, the while all the flesh of him quivered and trembled from the nerve-ravishment of the drink so palpably recently consumed. “On the pulque slate at Peter and Paul’s,” Torres, with a sneer, diagnosed unerringly. “On the pulque slate at Peter and Paul’s,” was the frank acknowledgment. “And the slate is full. No more pulque can I get credit for. I am wretched and suffer a thousand torments without my pulque.” “You are a pig creature without reason!” A strange dignity, as of wisdom beyond wisdom, seemed suddenly to animate the old wreck as he straightened up, for the nonce ceased from trembling, and gravely said: “I am old. There is no vigor left in the veins or the heart of me. The desires of my youth are gone. Not even may I labor with this broken body of mine, though well I know that labor is an easement and a forgetting. Not even may I labor and forget. Food is a distaste in my mouth and a pain in my belly. Women—they are a pest that it is a vexation to remember ever having desired. Children—I buried my last a dozen years gone. Religion—it frightens me. Death—I sleep with the terror of it. Pulque—ah, dear God! the one tickle and taste of living left to me! “What if I drink over much? It is because I have much to forget, and have but a little space yet to linger in the sun, ere the Darkness, for my old eyes, blots out the sun forever.” Impervious to the old man’s philosophy, Torres made an impatient threat of movement that he was going. “A few pesos, just a handful of pesos,” the old peon pleaded. “Not a centavo,” Torres said with finality. “Very well,” said the old man with equal finality. “What do you mean?” Torres rasped with swift suspicion. “Have you forgotten?” was the retort, with such emphasis of significance as to make Yi Poon wonder for what reason Torres gave the peon what seemed a pension or an allowance. “I pay you, according to agreement, to forget,” said Torres. “I shall never forget that my old eyes saw you stab the Senor Alfaro Solano in the back,” the peon replied. Although he remained hidden and motionless in his posture of repose behind the pillar, Yi Poon metaphorically sat up. The Solanos were persons of place and wealth. That Torres should have murdered one of them was indeed a secret of price.