"Is it ready?" demanded Harry hopefully.

"The kitchen is open, and the cooks there," Nicolas responded.
"When your excellency's orders have been given the cooks will prepare
your meal with great dispatch."

"Has Don Luis come down yet?" Tom inquired.

"No; for his great excellency has not yet eaten," answered the _peon_.

"Oh! Then your master eats in his own room?" Tom asked.

"Don Luis eats always his breakfast in bed," Nicolas told them.

"Then I guess we were too fresh, Tom, in getting up," laughed Harry.

As this was spoken in English, Nicolas, not understanding, paid
no heed. Tom and Harry, on the other hand, had a conversational
smattering of Spanish, for in Arizona they had had a large force
of Mexican laborers working under them.

"Nicolas, my good boy," Tom went on, "we are quite new to the ways
of Mexico. We shall have to ask you to explain some matters to us."

"I am a dog," said Nicolas, gravely, "but even a dog may speak
according to his knowledge."

"Then of what does the breakfast here usually consist?"