THE coterie was the most select in the Casino. Its members used to meet there in order to speak ill of everybody. There were young men who did nothing but ride horseback, try the strength of young bulls by prodding them with long pikes from horseback, and gamble their souls away; old men whose sole occupation was talking politics; and a great variety of persons who had made a business of amusing themselves—a fact which did not prevent one from reading a gloomy weariness in their expressions.

This meeting of aristocrats and plebeians, of rich men and poor men, of vagrants employed and unemployed, possessed a rare character, which was produced by a preponderance of aristocratic prejudices, mixed with a great simplicity.

In this coterie, so democratic in appearance, high and low had their say; even the waiters in the Casino mixed in the conversation. It possessed those characteristics, partly affable, partly coarse, that the Spanish aristocracy had had until foreign ideas and customs began to transform and polish it.

In that meeting one gleefully flayed one’s neighbour. Amid jests and laughter, flagellated by jovial satire, every person of significance in the town marched in review, either on account of their merits or their vices,[183] their stupidity or their wit. If one believed what was told there, the city was a hot-bed of imbroglios, obscenities, wild escapades.

Among the members of aristocratic families there was a multitude of alcoholics and diseased individuals; the rotten produce of vicious living and consanguineous marriages. In these families there were a great many men who seemed to be obsessed with the idea of going through their fortunes, of ruining themselves quickly; others travelled the road to ruin without meaning to, through the robbery of their administrators and usurers; the majority were simply idiots; the clever ones, the clear-sighted ones, went to Madrid to play politics, leaving the old ancestral homes completely dismantled.

The scandals of the masses were mixed with those of the aristocracy; and the ingenuous jests of the charcoal-burners, and the dissolute wit of the Celestinas, were repeated and applauded with relish.

They spoke, too, and constantly, of the bandits of the Sierra; they knew who their protectors were in and out of Cordova, where their hiding-places were: and this friendship with bandits was not looked upon as a disgrace, but rather as something that constituted, if not a glorious achievement, at least a spicy and piquant attraction for the town.

“The gangs are organized in the very jail itself, while the bandits walk about the city.”

“But, is that true?” asked some horrified stranger.

“Everything you hear is,” they told him with a laugh. “Even the abductions of Malaga and Seville are planned here.”

“And why don’t you put an end to the evil?”

When the Cordovese heard this he smiled at the[184] stranger, and added that in Cordova they had never looked upon the horsemen as an evil.

While the aristocrats and plebeians gave food for gossip, the middle class worked: lawyers, priests, and merchants enriched themselves, conducted their business, while a cloud of citizens from Soria fell like locusts upon the town, and took possession of the money and lands of the old, wealthy families by means of their evil skill at money-lending and usury.

One evening in the early part of autumn, several gentlemen were chatting in one of the salons of the Casino. They were members of the early coterie. Some were reading newspapers, and others were talking, seated upon divans, or walking to and fro.

Springer, the Swiss watch-maker’s son, had come in to read a newspaper, and as he read, he heard them talking about his friend Quentin, whom he had not seen for some time. He listened attentively.

“But is it true he has come into some money?” asked a stout, red-faced gentleman with a grey moustache.

“I don’t know,” answered a bald-headed man with a black beard. “He undoubtedly has money. They say that he has bought a house for María Lucena.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Quentin is a child of good luck,” added another.

“I should say he is,” responded he of the black beard. “Lucky at cards, and lucky at love.”

“Couldn’t the Marquis have given him some money?” asked the stout gentleman.

“The Marquis! He hasn’t a penny.”

“But where does the boy get his money?”

“I don’t know—unless he steals it.”

“But that would be found out.[185]”

The members of the coterie were all silent for a moment while the stout gentleman took a short nap; then he said:

“Do you know if that paper that has just been published is his?”

“What paper? La Víbora?” asked he of the bald head.

“Yes.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, they say it is.”

“It strikes me that that paper is owned by the Masons.”

“Oh, but don’t you know that Quentin is a Mason?” said a small, dark man with a black moustache.

“Really?” asked every one at once.

“Yes, indeed. I know it for a fact; he joined the Lodge this summer.”

“Perhaps he makes his living from that,” said the fat gentleman.

“No one makes a living from that,” replied the short man with a laugh. “It occurred to me when I was a student in Madrid to become a Mason, and do you know what happened? They carried me about from one place to another with my eyes bandaged, and ended by taking five dollars away from me.”

Every one laughed. At this point a young man entered and stretched out in an arm chair with an air of deep gloom.

“What’s up, Manolillo?” asked the bald-headed man.

“Nothing. Quentin is upstairs plucking everybody. If he quits in time, he’s going to come out ahead; if he stays in, he may lose everything.[186]”

As Springer, who heard this, was a man of good intentions and a loyal friend, he arose, threw his paper upon the table, left the salon, went through a gallery paved with marble, up a flight of stairs, and entered the gambling hall.

Quentin was dealing; he had a pile of bills and gold coins before him. Springer went up to him, and put his hand upon his shoulder. Quentin turned.

“What is it?”

“I come,” said Springer in a low voice, “to give you the advice of a gambler who just left here completely plucked. He said that if you quit in time, you’ll come out ahead; if you stay in, you may lose everything.”

“Really?” exclaimed Quentin, rising, as if he had just received important news. “Well, then, the only thing I can do is to leave. Gentlemen,” he added, addressing the players, “I shall return in a little while,” and placing the bills in his folder, he rapidly picked up the gold coins.

A murmur of indignation arose among the players.

“Come!” said Quentin to Springer.

They left the hall rapidly, descended the stairs, and did not stop until they had reached the street.

“But, what has happened to you?” the Swiss asked, utterly surprised.

“Nothing; it was a stratagem,” answered Quentin with a smile. “I could not find the right moment to leave decorously. They were all after me like dogs; and there I was boasting like a man to whom four or five thousand dollars more or less are of little importance. They would have gone up in smoke soon.”

By the light of a lamp, Quentin pulled out a handful of bills, sorted them, and put them into a folder; and[187] then, unbuttoning first his coat, and then his vest, he put them in his inside pocket.

“Aren’t you afraid something may happen to you in the street?” asked the Swiss.

“Ca!”

“Do you know that you are the talk of the town, Quentin?”

“Am I?”

“Really.............