"Is it necessary for you to puff every puff of that infernal smoke
in my face?" he demanded ominously.
"Well, you wouldn't smoke, yourself."
"If it weren't for this poor devil of a sick man--" began Carroll,
when a second thought about the smoke diverted his line of
thought. "Is it contagious?" he asked.
"It's so regarded," observed the other dryly.
"I'll take one of those, thank you."
Perkins handed him one of the rejected spirals. In silence, except
for the outrageous rattling of the wheels on the cobbles, they
drove through mean streets that grew ever meaner, until they drew
up at the blind front of a building abutting on an arroyo of the
foothills. Here they stopped, and Carroll threw his jehu a five-
bolivar piece, which the driver caught, driving away at once,
without the demand for more which usually follows overpayment in
Caracuna. Convenient to hand lay a small rock. Perkins used it for
a knocker, hammering on the guarded wooden door with such
vehemence as to still the clamor that arose from within.
Through the opening, as the barrier was removed by a leather-
skinned old crone, Carroll gazed into a passageway, beyond which
stretched a foul mule yard, bordered by what the visitor at first
supposed to be stalls, until he saw bedding and utensils in them.
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