Quote 1
"And you? You have no fear of going home before your usual hour?"
"Are you trying to insult me?"
"No, hombre, only to make a joke."
"No," the waiter who was in a hurry said, rising from putting on the metal shutters. "I have confidence. I am all confidence."
"You have youth, confidence, and a job," the older waiter said. "You have everything."
"And what do you lack?"
"Everything but work."
"You have everything I have."
"No. I have never had confidence and I'm not young." (13)
The younger waiter is totally satisfied with his life – he believes in his wife and his way of living, and, like most of us, believes that his youth makes him invincible. The older waiter, however, is past this point in his life; we wonder if dissatisfaction and uncertainty are inevitable consequences of age.
Quote 2
"We are of two different kinds," the older waiter said. He was now dressed to go home. "It is not only a question of youth and confidence although those things are very beautiful. Each night I am reluctant to close up because there may be some one who needs the cafe."
"Hombre, there are bodegas open all night long."
"You do not understand. This is a clean and pleasant cafe. It is well lighted. The light is very good and also, now, there are shadows of the leaves." (13)
The idea that someone might "need" the café, like the old man, suggests that the world is full of discontented, lost souls, who just need somewhere bright and pleasant to sit and escape from themselves.
Quote 3
stood up, slowly counted the saucers, took a leather coin purse from his pocket and paid for the drinks, leaving half a peseta tip.
The waiter watched him go down the street, a very old man walking unsteadily but with dignity.
"Why didn't you let him stay and drink?" the unhurried waiter asked. They were putting up the shutters. "It is not half-past two."
"I want to go home to bed."
"What is an hour?"
"More to me than to him." (11-13)
The younger waiter's impatience suggests that time is of more value to the young than to the old – to him, an extra hour means that he can spend more time with his wife, who's waiting at home, but, in his view, an hour more or less means nothing to the old man, who has nobody waiting for him.