A good-sized trunk would easily have held Don Noé's wardrobe, but there was a certain amount of style in staggering out of a car or off a steamer, loaded down with a parcel of canes, fishing-rods, and a gun-case, while the weary servant, who did not care a fig for glory, stumbled along behind with portmanteaus, bags, and hat boxes. It is quite true, as Felisa sometimes reminded Don Noé, that he had never caught a fish or shot a bird. Style, however, is a _sine qua non_, and reputation, however falsely obtained, if the methods are not exposed, stands by a man his whole life long. Self-valuation had Uncle Noé. From his own account, he was a very remarkable man. And as he usually talked to those who knew nothing of his past, they accepted his statements, perforce, as the truth.
The dripping peons hung about the steps. Their shirts clung to their shoulders, but those the sun would dry. Don Noé sat quiet as a mouse upon the angle of the outer veranda.
"It is you that need not wait, Eduardo Juan, nor you, Garcia Garcito. The Don Beltran will see that you get some reward."
"A ching-ching?" suggested the foremost, slyly.
She retraced her steps along the veranda, the men trooping after. Past all the long length of the sleeping-rooms went Agueda, until she reached the storeroom. The door of this she opened with a key which hung with the bunch at her waist. She entered, and beckoned to Garcia Garcito to follow.
"Lift down the demijohn, you, Garcia Garcito, and you, Trompa, go to Juana for a glass."
Garcia Garcito entered, and raising his brawny arms to the shelf overhead, grasped the demijohn and set it upon the table. Trompa returned with the glass. Agueda measured out a drink of the rum for each as the glass was emptied by his predecessor. The men took it gratefully. Each as his turn came, approached the filter standing in the comer, watered his dram, and drank it off, some with a "Bieng," others--those of the better class--with a bow to Agueda, and a "Gracia." Eduardo Juan, more careless than the rest, snapped the drops from his drained glass upon the spotless floor, instead of from the edge of the veranda to the grass, as the others had done.
"Eduardo Juan, you know very well that that rudeness is not allowed here. Go and ask Juana for a cloth that is damp, that you may wipe those spots."