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. Having done so, I pushed one cartwheel back at him.
Again he made no comment - he had heard the dull ring, of that putatively silver coin as well as I. He rang up 'No Sale', handed me another cartwheel (which rang clear as a bell), and put the bogus coin somewhere in the back of the cash drawer. Then he turned his back on me.
At the outskirts of town, halfway to Winona, we found a place shabby enough to meet our standards. Margrethe conducted the dicker, in Spanish. Our host asked five dollars. Marga called on the Virgin Mary and three other saints to witness what was being done to her. Then she offered him five pesos.
I did not understand this maneuver; I knew she had no pesos on her. Surely she would not be intending to offer those unspendable 'royal' pesos I still carried?
I did not find out, as our host answered with a price of three dollars and that is final, Seсora, as God is my witness.
They settled on a dollar and a half, then Marga rented clean sheets and a blanket for another fifty cents - paid for the lot with two silver dollars but demanded pillows and ' clean pillow-cases to seal the bargain. She got them but the patrуn asked something for luck. Marga added a dime and he bowed deeply and assured us that his house was ours.
At seven the next morning we were on our way, rested, clean, happy and hungry. A half hour later we were in Winona and much hungrier. We cured the latter at a little trailer-coach lunchroom: a stack of wheat cakes, ten cents; coffee, five cents no charge for second cup, no limit on butter or syrup
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