manners of the people, and he who would faithfully picture these exceptionable manners would be set down as a somewhat unscrupulous story-teller, when he is, in fact, only a simple historian.
CHAPTER I.
The Public Scribe.—Pepito Rechifla.—The China.—The Callejon del Arco.
At the commencement of the year 1835 I happened to be in Mexico, engaged in the prosecution of a troublesome piece of business. This concerned the somewhat problematical recovery of a very considerable sum of money due me by an individual of whom I could not find the slightest trace. The business demanded the most energetic measures, and I addressed myself, in consequence, to several lawyers, well known for their success in dealing with such difficult cases. They all at first promised their assistance, but when I mentioned my debtor's name (he was called Don Dionisio Peralta), one and all of them excused themselves from having any share in the business. One said he could never pardon himself if he gave the slightest cause of uneasiness to so gallant a man as Señor Peralta; a second, that he was attached to him by a compadrazgo[1] of long standing; a third suddenly remembered that he had been a bosom friend of his in his youth. A fourth, more communicative than the others, enlightened me as to the cause of such friendly scruples; these gentlemen had the fear of a dagger before their eyes, a mode of procedure of which Señor Peralta had
- ↑ Lit., a compaternity
