The Recipe for Diamonds by Cutcliffe Hyne — Read

For a rapid, short-lived acquaintanceship, above all other animals upon this terrestrial sphere, commend me to the Continental drummer. To commence, he is always easy to chum with quickly, and always ready to make the first advances. He is a salted traveller. He knows what is the best of everything, how to get it, and, moreover, how to get it cheaply. He never plagues you with "shop," or secondhand guide-book extracts, or sentiment about scenery and sunsets. Cheeriness and _bons mots_ are part of his stock-in-trade; brazen good-fellowship is his strong specialty.

Haigh and I went up to our hotel, asked for a bedroom, and in Spanish style got a suite of apartments. We were just in time for dinner, and, having arrived _en prince_ in our own vessel, were going to be billeted amongst the _habitues_ of the place -- garrison soldiers, petty "proprietors," and priests -- who sat round the superior table in the big room. There we should have been in company that was vastly respectable and prodigiously slow. But nearer the street entrance was another smaller room, occupied chiefly by the commercial fraternity, and thither we went, the landlord fully comprehending our taste. "Gentlemen do like to have a bit of a fling to rub away the salt, don't they, senores? " said he.