“Pipe down, Mike.”
“Tell him Brett is dying to know how he can get into those pants.”
“Pipe down.”
During this Romero was fingering his glass and talking with Brett. Brett was talking French and he was talking Spanish and a little English, and laughing.
Bill was filling the glasses.
“Tell him Brett wants to come into—”
“Oh, pipe down, Mike, for Christ’s sake!”
Romero looked up smiling. “Pipe down! I know that,” he said.
Just then Montoya came into the room. He started to smile at me, then he saw Pedro Romero with a big glass of cognac in his hand, sitting laughing between me and a woman with bare shoulders, at a table full of drunks. He did not even nod.
Montoya went out of the room. Mike was on his feet proposing a toast. “Let’s all drink to—” he began. “Pedro Romero,” I said. Everybody stood up. Romero took it very seriously, and we touched glasses and drank it down, I rushing it a little because Mike was trying to make it clear that that was not at all what he was going to drink to. But it went off all right, and Pedro Romero shook hands with everyone and he and the critic went out together.
“My God! he’s a lovely boy,” Brett said. “And how I would love to see him get into those clothes. He must use a shoehorn.”
“I started to tell him,” Mike began. “And Jake kept interrupting me. Why do you interrupt me? Do you think you talk Spanish better than I