"Ferrero was a most friendly person, and invited Cogan to eat with him,
and Cogan went. Ten or a dozen bull-fighters boarded in one place near
the bull-ring--a large, square, two-story adobe house; a grand house,
with walls painted in colors and splendid high rooms arranged around a
patio inside.
"It was now high noon, and warm enough in the sunny streets outside,
but in the patio it was cool, with a breeze from the Pacific, and after
lunch the bull-fighters sat around there and smoked cigarettes and
played stringed instruments, all but a few wild ones who went leaping
and springing about the garden walks. Cogan could not hide his interest
in this jumping exercise, and Ferrero, seeing it, invited him to join
in, which Cogan did, and beat everybody there jumping. He did so well
that Ferrero asked him if he could jump over a horse, and he said he'd
try it. So they went out and got a horse, and Cogan jumped over it. And
then they brought in another and placed the two side by side, and Cogan
jumped over the pair of them, at which they all shouted 'Bueno, bueno,
Americano!' and Ferrero slapped him on the back and told him he must
stay with them and practice bull-fighting.
"Cogan had another question. Was not the mounted capeador Juan Roca a
brother of Luis Roca, the hat dealer? And he was told that he was, and
that Luis Roca was now engaged in an enormous hat business with the
United States, and had grown very wealthy, thanks to the increase of
trade since the American occupation of the Isthmus.
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