Mazaro passed silently through the group about the door-steps, and not many minutes afterward, Galahad Shaughnessy, having taken a place among the exiles, rose with the remark that the old gentleman would doubtless be willing to tell them good-night.  Good-night was accordingly said, the Cafe des Exiles closed her windows, then her doors, winked a moment or two through the cracks in the shutters and then went fast asleep.

The Mexican physician, at Galahad’s request, told Mazaro that at the next meeting of the burial society he might and must occupy his accustomed seat without fear of molestation; and he did so.

The meeting took place some seven days after the affair in the back parlor, and on the same ground.  Business being finished, Galahad, who presided, stood up, looking, in his white duck suit among his darkly-clad companions, like a white sheep among black ones, and begged leave to order “dlasses” from the front room.  I say among black sheep; yet, I suppose, than that double row of languid, effeminate faces, one would have been taxed to find a more harmless-looking company.  The glasses were brought and filled.

“Gentlemen,” said Galahad, “comrades, this may be the last time we ever meet together an unbroken body.”

Martinez of San Domingo, he of the horrible experience, nodded with a lurking smile, curled a leg under him and clasped his fingers behind his head.

“Who knows,” continued the speaker, “but Senor Benito, though strong and sound and har’ly thirty-seven”—­here all smiled—­“may be taken ill tomorrow?”

Martinez smiled across to the tall, gray Benito on Galahad’s left, and he, in turn, smilingly showed to the company a thin, white line of teeth between his moustachios like distant reefs.

“Who knows,” the young Irishman proceeded to inquire, “I say, who knows but Pedro, theyre, may be struck wid a fever?”

Pedro, a short, compact man of thoroughly mixed blood, and with an eyebrow cut away, whose surname no one knew, smiled his acknowledgments.

“Who knows?” resumed Galahad, when those who understood English had explained in Spanish to those who did not, “but they may soon need the services not only of our good doctor heer, but of our society; and that Fernandez and Benigno, and Gonzalez and Dominguez, may not be chosen to see, on that very schooner lying at the Picayune Tier just now, their beloved remains and so forth safely delivered into the hands and lands of their people.  I say, who knows bur it may be so!”

The company bowed graciously as who should say, “Well-turned phrases, Senor—­well-turned.”

“And amigos, if so be that such is their approoching fate, I will say:” 

He lifted his glass, and the rest did the same.

“I say, I will say to them, Creoles, countrymen, and lovers, boun voyadge an’ good luck to ye’s.”

For several moments there was much translating, bowing, and murmured acknowledgments; Mazaro said:  “Bueno!” and all around among the long double rank of moustachioed lips amiable teeth were gleaming, some white, some brown, some yellow, like bones in the grass.