It was not necessary for him to speak very much Spanish, or any other
language, to get a job at carrying things up a gang-plank, and, in pay
for this labor, he willingly took whatever was given him.
That night, with very little money in his pocket, Inkspot entered a
tavern, a low place, but not so low as the one he had patronized on his
arrival in Valparaiso. He had had a meagre supper, and now possessed
but money enough to pay for one glass of whiskey, and having procured
this, he seated himself on a stool in a corner, determined to protract
his enjoyment as long as possible. Where he would sleep that night he
knew not, but it was not yet bedtime, and he did not concern himself
with the question.
Near by, at a table, were seated four men, drinking, smoking, and
talking. Two of these were sailors. Another, a tall, dark man with a
large nose, thin at the bridge and somewhat crooked below, was dressed in
very decent shore clothes, but had a maritime air about him,
notwithstanding. The fourth man, as would have been evident to any one
who understood Spanish, was a horse-dealer, and the conversation, when
Inkspot entered the place, was entirely about horses. But Inkspot did
not know this, as he understood so few of the words that he heard, and he
would not have been interested if he had understood them. The
horse-dealer was the principal spokesman, but he would have been a poor
representative of the shrewdness of his class, had he been trying to sell
horses to sailors.
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