A knock came at the door.

“Aqui!” (here) Tom answered.

The door opened slowly.  A man servant of perhaps twenty-five years, attired in clean white clothes, but bare-footed, stood in the doorway, bowing very low.

“Buenos dias, caballeros!” (good morning, gentlemen) was his greeting.

Tom invited him to enter.

“Caballeros,” announced the peon, “I am your servant, your slave, your dog!  My name is Nicolas.”

“How do you do, Nicolas,” responded Tom, holding out his hand, which the Mexican appeared too dazed, or too respectful to take.  “We may find a servant useful.  But we never kept slaves, and we wouldn’t dream of calling any man a dog.”

“I am your dog, caballeros,” Nicolas asserted.  “I am yours to do with as you wish.  Beat me, if I do not perform my work well.”

“But I wouldn’t beat a dog.  Almost any dog is too fine a fellow to be served in that fashion,” Tom explained.

“Caballeros, I am here to receive your pleasure and commands concerning breakfast.”

“Is it ready?” demanded Harry hopefully.

“The kitchen is open, and the cooks there,” Nicolas responded.  “When your excellency’s orders have been given the cooks will prepare your meal with great dispatch.”

“Has Don Luis come down yet?” Tom inquired.

“No; for his great excellency has not yet eaten,” answered the peon.

“Oh!  Then your master eats in his own room?” Tom asked.

“Don Luis eats always his breakfast in bed,” Nicolas told them.

“Then I guess we were too fresh, Tom, in getting up,” laughed Harry.

As this was spoken in English, Nicolas, not understanding, paid no heed.  Tom and Harry, on the other hand, had a conversational smattering of Spanish, for in Arizona they had had a large force of Mexican laborers working under them.

“Nicolas, my good boy,” Tom went on, “we are quite new to the ways of Mexico.  We shall have to ask you to explain some matters to us.”

“I am a dog,” said Nicolas, gravely, “but even a dog may speak according to his knowledge.”

“Then of what does the breakfast here usually consist?”

“Of anything in Don Luis’s larder,” replied the peon grandly.

“Yet surely there must be some rule about the meal.”

“The only rule, excellency, is the pleasure of the host.”

“What does Don Luis, then, usually order?”

“Chocolate,” replied the servant.

“Nothing else?”

“And a roll or two, excellency.”

“What does he eat after that?” Harry demanded, rather anxiously.

“Nothing, caballero, until the next meal.”

“Chocolate and a roll or two,” muttered Harry.  “I am afraid that wouldn’t hold me through a day’s work.  Not even a forenoon’s toil.  I never did like to diet on a plan of tightening my belt.”