–What the hell! This Carlos can't even come to his senses, and now! No wonder he was laughing in the street about the sticking he was going to do to me. And you too? Well, if these people here are the same devils. What do you think of the one they did to me today?
Carlos came out of the room, taking advantage of this happy occasion, and we were both able to laugh at our ease.
–What Emigdio! -said he to our visitor, "sit down in this chair, which has no trap. It is necessary that you should keep a leash.
–Yes," replied Emigdio, sitting down suspiciously, as if he feared another failure.
–What have they done to you? -he laughed more than Carlos asked.
–Have you seen? I was about not to tell them.
–But why? -insisted the implacable Carlos, throwing an arm round his shoulders, "tell us.
Emigdio was angry at last, and we could hardly content him. A few glasses of wine and some cigars ratified our armistice. As for the wine, our countryman remarked that the orange wine made in Buga was better, and the green anisete from the Paporrina sale. The cigars from Ambalema seemed to him inferior to the ones he carried in his pockets, stuffed in dried banana leaves and perfumed with chopped fig and orange leaves.
After two days, our Telemachus was now suitably dressed and groomed by Master Hilary; and though his fashionable clothes made him uncomfortable, and his new boots made him look like a candlestick, he had to submit, stimulated by vanity and by Charles, to what he called a martyrdom.
Once settled in the house where we lived, he amused us in the after-dinner hours by telling our landladies about the adventures of his journey and giving his opinion about everything that had attracted your attention in the city. In the street it was different, for we were obliged to leave him to his own devices, that is, to the jovial impertinence of the saddlers and hawkers, who ran to besiege him as soon as they saw him, to offer him Chocontana chairs, arretrancas, zamarros, braces and a thousand trinkets.
Fortunately, Emigdio had already finished all his shopping when he came to find out that the daughter of the lady of the house, an easy-going, carefree, laughing girl, was dying for him.
Charles, without stopping at bars, succeeded in convincing him that Micaelina had hitherto disdained the courtships of all the diners; but the devil, who does not sleep, made Emigdio surprise his kid and his beloved one night in the dining-room, when they thought the wretch asleep, for it was ten o'clock, the hour at which he was usually in his third sleep; a habit which he justified by always getting up early, even if he was shivering with cold.
When Emigdio saw what he had seen and heard what he had heard, which, if only he had seen and heard nothing for his and our peace of mind, he thought only of speeding up his march.
As he had no complaint against me, he confided in me the night before the journey, telling me, among many other unburdenings:
In Bogotá there are no ladies: these are all… seven-soled flirts. When this one has done it, what do you expect? I'm even afraid I won't say goodbye to her. There's nothing like the girls of our land; here there's nothing but danger. You see Carlos: he's a corpus altar, he goes to bed at eleven o'clock at night, and he's more full of himself than ever. Let him be; I'll let Don Chomo know so that he can put the ashes on him. I admire to see you thinking only of your studies.
