A PROSPEROUS EMIGRANT. 183 



we answered that we would dine at his house, 

 which he acknowledged through Albino as a much 

 higher honour. 



His house was on the principal street, but a short 

 distance from the plaza, and one of the first erected, 

 and the best in the place. He had been induced to 

 settle in Iturbide on account of the facilities and priv- 

 ileges offered by the government, and the privilege 

 which he seemed to value most was that of selling 

 out. As he told us himself, when he came he was 

 not worth a medio, and he seemed really to have 

 held his own remarkably well. But appearances 

 were deceitful, for he was a man of property. His 

 house, including doors and a partition at one end, 

 had cost him thirty dollars. The doors and parti- 

 tion his neighbours regarded as a piece of preten- 

 sion, and he himself supposed that these might have 

 been dispensed with, but he had no children, and 

 did not mind the expense. At one end of the room 

 was a rude frame, supporting the image of a tu- 

 telary saint. Near it was a stick thrust into the 

 mud floor, with three prongs at the upper end, in 

 which rested an earthen vessel containing castor 

 oil, with a wick in it, to light up the mansion at 

 night; a sort of bar with bottles containing agua 

 ardiente flavoured with anise, for retailing to the 

 Indians, which, with a small table and three ham- 

 mocks, constituted the furniture of Don Juan's house. 

 These last served for chairs, but as he had never an- 

 ticipated the extraordinary event of dining three per- 



