Chapter 10

"Buenos dias, Senor." Carara bowed politely to Speed.

"Good-morning again," said Wally.

Turning to the trainer, Carara eyed him from top to toe, removed his cigarette, and flipped the ashes daintily from it; then, smiling disdainfully, said:

"Buenos dias, Senor Fat!"

Glass started. "You talkin' to me?"

"Yes." Carara leaned languidly against the wall, took a match from his pocket, and dextrously struck it between the nails of his thumb and finger. He breathed his lungs full of smoke and exhaled it through his nose. "I would have spik to you biffore, but the Senor Fat is"--he shrugged his shoulders--"frighten' so bad he will not understan'. So--I come back."

"Who's scared?" said Glass, gruffly.

Carara turned his palm outward, in gentle apology.

"You been talk' a gret deal to my Senorita--to Mariedetta, eh?"

"Oh, the Cuban Queen!" Glass winked openly at Speed. "Sure! I slip her a laugh now and then."

"She is not Cubana, she is Mexicana," said Carara, politely.

"Well, what d'you think of that! I thought she was a Cuban." Glass began to chuckle.

"Senor Fat," broke in the Mexican, sharply, while Larry winced at the distasteful appellation, "she is my Senorita!"

"Is she? Well, I can't help it if she falls for me." The speaker cast an appreciative glance at his employer. "And you can cut out that 'Senor Fat,' because it don't go--" Then he gasped, for Carara slowly drew from inside his shirt a long, thin-bladed knife bearing marks of recent grinding, and his black eyes snapped. His face had become suddenly convulsed, while his voice rang with the tone of chilled metal. Glass retreated a step, a shudder ran through him, and his eyes riveted themselves upon the weapon with horrified intensity.

"Listen, Pig! If you spik to her again, I will cut you." The gaze of the Mexican pierced his victim. "I will not keel you, I will just--cut you!"

Speed, who had sat in open-mouthed amazement during the scene, pinched himself. Like Larry, he could not remove his gaze from the swarthy man. He pulled himself together with an effort, however, undertaking to divert the present trend of the conversation.

"W--where will you cut him?" he asked, pleasantly, more to make conversation than from any lingering question as to the precise location.

"Here." Carara turned the blade against himself, and traced a cross upon his front, whereupon the trainer gurgled and laid protecting hands upon his protruding abdomen. "You spik Spanish?" "No." Glass shook his head.

"But you understan' w'at I try to say?"

"Yes--oh yes--I'm hep all