From Pancho's manner I am sure he felt as if his vocation were gone, by the way I had overleaped the bounds of custom in finding out things for myself. Nevertheless, he managed now and then to give some of the venders an account of our house, its location, and my singular management. But though looking mystified, he never left me for a moment, no matter how long I talked, or asked explanations.
We went into the stores, Pancho keeping between me and the crowd. The shopkeepers were as much surprised and as curious as the people in the streets, to see me marketing. But when the crowd of idlers closed up around me, they were polite and solicitous to know if the "procession" annoyed me.
The arrangement of the merchandise and the method of trafficking elicited an involuntary smile from me at every turn; so, if the merchants, clerks, and the "procession" found fun at my expense, I was no less amused at theirs.
Dozens of mozos bought from them, in my presence, a table-spoonful of lard, which the agile clerk placed on a bit of brown paper for transportation; three or four lumps of sugar, a tlaco's worth of salt, the same of pepper, were all taken from immense piles of these articles, near at hand, wrapped and ready for the purchaser.
Dainty china tea-cups hung closely together by their handles on the edge of every shelf, and up and down the walls in unbroken lines; but not a saucer was in sight, nor could a dish be had at any price.
Anticipating that I would take a tlaco, medio, and real's worth, like the mozos, the clerk took in his nimble fingers a few of the little packages; but my extraordinary announcement despoiled him of his ordinary sales.
Every eye was upon me when I had the temerity to ask for twenty pounds of sugar, ten pounds of coffee, and a gallon of vinegar. Sugar and coffee were abundant, but the vinegar was in bottles. He handed me one with a flourish, saying, "Vinagre de Francia. We have no other." I began to feel that far-away France had become my ally, having, like me, made an invasion on the "costumbres;" the
