SE?ORA PATROCINIO seated herself at the table. She was a thin, lean old woman, with a yellow complexion, a hooked nose which was on friendly terms with her chin, grey hair, and a wrinkled skin.

Don Gil took a drink, and continued as follows:

 

The store was located in a large, antique house, painted blue. On the ground floor were four grated windows, a door, and two little shops. One of these was a mat store, and the other was the one El Pende had rented.

It was a tiny apartment, scarcely three metres square, with a few living-rooms beyond a dark back room.

El Pende put neither signs nor decorations on his shop; he placed a counter painted with red ochre in the middle of the floor, set up a few pine shelves, and commenced business.

All kinds of things to eat and to drink and to burn were sold at the store; a heterogeneous assortment was heaped upon the shelves; there were soaps, silks, taffy of all kinds, and dyes from the most distinguished factory in the whole world, which is that of the Calle de Mucho Trigo; there were hemp-seeds roasted in honey, candied pine-nuts, almond paste, and those thin little wafers that you must have seen, that look like priests’ hats.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

[115]

“Come, don’t get tiresome,” said Se?ora Patrocinio.

“If you interrupt me, Sister Patrocinio, I shall refuse to go on,” answered the narrator.

“You are losing the thread of your story. Come to the point, Don Gil, come to the point.”

“Very well, then—I refuse to continue.”

“Go on, man, go on; you’re crankier than a wheat-sifter,” said the old woman.

“Where was I?” murmured Don Gil. “I believe I’ve forgotten.”

“You were telling us what the store contained,” suggested Quentin.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Of drinkables (the arch?ologist continued), there were all sorts of brandies and refreshing beverages; rossolis, which they call ressolis here; Cazalla, and wild cherry brandy in green jars which some call parrots, and others greenfinches.

The little store in the Calle de la Zapatería soon had customers. Country folk used to go there to take a little nip in the morning; a few servant girls and a great many children used to stop there to buy sweets.

El Pende stayed behind the counter where he received his friends, who sometimes spent a little money. The most assiduous in his attendance at these gatherings, was a ruined hidalgo by the name of Palomares, whom El Pende had known since childhood, and who, having nothing to do, used to take refuge in the shop. In order not to be in the way, and at the same time to make himself useful, he used to wait on customers himself.

This hidalgo, Diego Palomares, was an adventurer, a[116] son of Lucena. He had departed from his home town for the first time when he was eighteen years old, to attend the Seville Fair. He lost all his money and his desire to return to his native city, by gambling, and acquired, in exchange, a desire to see the world; so he went to Cadiz and embarked for America. There he had his ups and downs successively: he was a merchant, a super-cargo on a ship, and after many years of hard and fatiguing work, he returned to Cordova, thirty-six years old, penniless, and prematurely aged.

When Diego Palomares saw that his friend was getting on well with the store, he joined him.

While El Pende sat at the counter tending the store, Fuensanta continued to help the silversmith.

Six months after the first gift, the old Marquis sent for Fuensanta and gave her another hundred dollars.

From the wife’s hands they passed into those of her husband, who used them all in the store.

El Pende asked the landlord to give him another room, and to remove one of the grated windows, that he might enlarge his store. His request was granted, and in place of the grating, they installed a show-window.

Then El Pende had a sign painted, and hanging from the board, a gilt, many-pointed star.

How many arguments he and Palomares had as to whether the star was right or not!

I remember that one day, when I was on my way to the Casino, they called me in to elucidate the question for them; and you ought to have heard me give them a talk about office-signs of all kinds! It is a matter to which few people pay any attention.

[117]

 

“Come, there you go again, wandering away from your subject,” said the old woman.

“Be quiet,” Don Gil ejaculated. “This matter of signs is very interesting; don’t you think so?” he asked Quentin.

“I don’t know anything about it.”

“Oh, don’t you? Well, for example, some night you may see a closed store with a sign which reads ‘Perez,’ with two red hands hanging from the board. What kind of business do those red hands indicate?”

“A glove store, perhaps?” asked Quentin.

“That’s right. How clever the lad is! What does a basin indicate?”

“That’s well known—a barber shop.”

“And a rooster on top of a ball?”

“That I don’t know.”

“Why, a poultry shop. And a red or blue ball in a show-case?”

“A drug store.”

“Very good. And a little tiny mattress?”

“A mattress-maker’s store.”

“And one or two black hands holding a bunch of keys?”

“I think I have seen that in front of locksmiths’ shops.”

“That’s right. And a large book?”

“A bindery.”

“But what a clever chap he is! And large eyeglasses—very large?”

“An optician’s.”

“And the bust of a woman leaning from a balcony as though taking the air?”

“I don’t know.[118]”

“A ladies’ hair-dressing salon: but they don’t have as many here as they do in Madrid. And a horse-shoe?”

“You’re the one that ought to be horse-shoed,” ejaculated Se?ora Patrocinio. “Are you going on with the story or not, Don Gil?”

“But you two are confusing me! You make me lose the thread. Where was I?”

“You were telling us,” said Se?ora Patrocinio, “about how they fixed up the store with the Marquis’ money.”

“Ah! That’s so.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

They widened the store; left off several articles that were not very productive, and devoted themselves exclusively to selling comestibles. They bought casks of Montillo wine, Montero oil, sugar, coffee, and hired some chocolate makers to make chocolate.

Palomares, whom El Pende had engaged as a clerk when he saw the prosperity of the establishment, spent the day wrapping up cakes of chocolate, toasting coffee, and mixing peanuts and chicory.

Palomares had a great talent for labelling his mixtures. When he had faked up something, he called it “Extra-Superior”; if the fake was so complete that one could not tell what kind of a product it was, then he called it “Superior” or “Fine.”

Besides these hyperbolical names, there were other more modest ones, such as “First Class,” “Second Class,” and “Third Class.” These divisions were hard to define; yet Pa............