big coffee-glass and a liqueur-glass on it. In his left hand he held a bottle of brandy. He swung these down to the table and a boy who had followed him poured coffee and milk into the glass from two shiny, spouted pots with long handles.
Manuel took off his cap and the waiter noticed his pigtail pinned forward on his head. He winked at the coffee-boy as he poured out the brandy into the little glass beside Manuel’s coffee. The coffee-boy looked at Manuel’s pale face curiously.
“You fighting here?” asked the waiter, corking up the bottle.
“Yes,” Manuel said. “Tomorrow.”
The waiter stood there, holding the bottle on one hip.
“You in the Charlie Chaplins?” he asked.
The coffee-boy looked away, embarrassed.
“No. In the ordinary.”
“I thought they were going to have Chaves and Hernandez,” the waiter said.
“No. Me and another.”
“Who? Chaves or Hernandez?”
“Hernandez, I think.”
“What’s the matter with Chaves?”
“He got hurt.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Retana.”
“Hey, Looie,” the waiter called to the next room, “Chaves got cogida.”
Manuel had taken the wrapper off the lumps of sugar and dropped them into his coffee. He stirred it and drank it down, sweet, hot, and warming in his empty stomach. He drank off the brandy.
“Give me another shot of that,” he said to the waiter.
The waiter uncorked the bottle and poured the glass full, slopping another drink into the saucer. Another waiter had come up in front of the table. The coffee-boy was gone.
“Is Chaves hurt bad?” the second waiter asked Manuel.
“I don’t know,” Manuel said, “Retana didn’t say.”
