Part 8 (1/2)
After eating, some of the shoemaker's family went off to the courtyard for their siesta, while others remained in the shop.
Vidal, the man's younger son, sprawled out in the patio beside Manuel, and having inquired into the cause of the b.u.mps that stood out on his cousin's forehead, asked:
”Have you ever been on this street before?”
”I? No.”
”We have great times around here.”
”You do, eh?”
”I should say so. Haven't you a girl?”
”I? No.”
”Well, there are lots of girls 'round here that would like to have a fellow.”
”Really?”
”Yes, sir! Over where we live there's a very pretty little thing, a friend of my girl. You can hitch up with her.”
”But don't you live in this house?”
”No. We live in Embajadores lane. It's my aunt Salome and my grandmother who live here. Over where we are--oh, boy!--the times I've had!”
”In the town where I come from,” said Manuel, not to be dwarfed by his cousin, ”there were mountains higher than twenty of your houses here.”
”In Madrid we've got the Monte de Principe Pio.”
”But it can't be as high as the one in that town.”
”It can't? Why, in Madrid everything's the best.”
Manuel was not a little put out by the superiority which his cousin tried to a.s.sume by speaking to him about women in the tone of an experienced man about town who knew them through and through. After the noonday nap and a game of mus, over which the shoemaker and a few neighbours managed to get into a wrangle, Senor Ignacio and his children went off to their house. Manuel supped at Senora Jacoba's, the vegetable huckstress's, and slept in a beautiful bed that looked to him far better than the one at the boarding-house.
Once in, he weighed the pros and contras of his new social position, and in the midst of his calculations as to whether the needle of the balance inclined to this side or that, he fell asleep.
At first, the monotony of the labour and the steady application bothered Manuel; but soon he grew accustomed to one thing and another, so that the days seemed shorter and the work less irksome.
The first Sunday Manuel was fast asleep in Senora Jacoba's house when Vidal came in and waked him. It was after eleven; the marketwoman, as usual, had departed at dawn for her stall, leaving the boy alone.
”What are you doing there?” asked Vidal. ”Why don't you get up?”
”Why? What time is it?”
”Awful late.”
Manuel dressed hurriedly and they both left the house. Nearby, opposite Aguila street, on a little square, they joined a group of boys who were playing _chito_, and they followed the fortunes of the game with deep interest.
At noon Vidal said to his cousin:
”Today we're going to eat yonder.”