Explore "The Gold-Seekers" by Gustave Aimard on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The Hispano-Americans usually drink nothing with their meals: it is only when the _dulces_, or cakes and sweetmeats, have been eaten, and each guest has swallowed the glass of water intended to facilitate digestion, that the liquors are put on the table, and the Catalonian _refino_ begins to circulate; then the _puros_ and _pajillos_ are lighted, and the conversation, always rather stiff during the meal, becomes more intimate and friendly, owing to the absence of the inferior guests, who then retire, leaving the master of the house and his guests at perfect liberty.
The captain had judiciously chosen this moment to commence his attack. Not that he hoped to have a better chance with the young man at the termination of the meal -- for the sobriety of the Southern Americans is proverbial -- but because at that moment Don Sebastian, being freed from all cares, must more easily yield to the influence the captain fancied he could exercise over him.