: Vagabond Life in Mexico by Ferry Gabriel - Mexico Social life and customs

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ppearance, with a small porch before the door, supported by brick pillars. Numerous cracks furrowed the walls in every direction, clearly indicating a sad state of disrepair. Behind the house was a garden choked with weeds, surrounded by a wall thickly covered with moss, and crowned with pellitories. The porter, whom the licentiate had put in charge of the house, opened the door. "You are in your own house," said Don Tadeo to me. We entered. The interior of the house was as desolate as the exterior. The ceilings were gaping with chinks, the disjointed boards in the stairs creaked sadly under foot, and the garden was nothing more than a collection of sentern, nettles, and thistles, in the midst of which rose some sickly-looking fruit-trees. This wretched house and garden, however, were almost equal to the debt, and that was sufficient; the more in the case of such a debtor as Peralta was, with whom one could not be too exacting.

"Well," said the licentiate to me, when we were alone, "you see you have got payment of your debt. What do you think of my plan for making stubborn debtors pay?"

"I fear, Don Tadeo, that you are playing a very dangerous game for yourself; and, if you would take my advice, you would give up business immediately as redresser of wrongs, as I think the losses exceed the profits."

"You see, however, that I am fortunate in my enterprises. Never mind. But as I may prematurely receive a dagger-thrust some day or other, I would like you to keep some remembrance of me. Here is a book which was not comprised in the inventory of the house. It is an old work, and not without its value."

The time had now come when we must return to Mexico. Without waiting for Pepito, who would probably finish the day at a wine-shop, we pushed along. The heat was as insupportable as before. The flock of vultures that Pepito had pointed out to Don Tadeo had evidently increased, and a fetid odor was wafted by the wind in our direction from the little mounds above which the birds were fluttering. The licentiate drew up suddenly.

"If you are curious to read the last page of the history of which we were just talking," said he, "go over to these hillocks; but I fear your nerves are not strong enough."

"And what shall I see among these rocks?"

"A corpse; you observe that at this very moment the birds are pecking at it. One of the three ruffians whom I employed to recover your debt has paid for all the others. God is just! The man who fell under the dagger of Peralta was the perpetrator of the outrage on the Paseo of Bucareli. The romance is now complete, is it not?"

"Assuredly; and the sight of the vultures will add to the impression your story has made upon me."

"Come," said the licentiate, spurring his horse, "I see you are getting nervous. To town, then."

We parted on the Plaza Mayor in the hope of seeing one another again, but fortune decreed otherwise; and a few weeks after my installation in Peralta's house I quitted Mexico.

During my absence the gambling-house in the Callejon was closed. On my return, Tio Lucas informed me that the licentiate had returned to Spain. Since that time I have made many ineffectual attempts to procure some information about him. The only souvenir that was left me of this extraordinary man is the manuscript of Alonso Urbano, now in the National Library at Paris.

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