"It was Pepe de la Esquila!"
All eyes were then directed to the delinquent, who, drawing the mouthpiece from his cornet, shook it with assumed indifference while his face became redder and redder.
"Those who can not play should go to bed," cried the same voice.
Then the abashed and ashamed Pepe de la Esquila was fraught with fury. He threw his instrument upon the floor, rose from his seat with his eyes aflame with rage, shook his fist at the gallery, and cried:
"I'll settle you when we get out, see if I don't."
"Sh! sh! Silence, silence!" exclaimed the audience in a breath.
"What is there to settle, man? Get on and play the cornet better."
"Silence, silence! Shame!" cried the audience again, and all eyes were then turned to the mayor's box.
He was a man of sixty or seventy years of age, short of stature and very high-colored; his hair was still thick and quite white, his cheeks were shaven, his nose Roman, his eyes large, round, and prominent. He looked like a courtier of the time of Louis XV, or a coachman of some grand house.
Don Roque, for such was his name, turned round in his seat, and called out in a stentorian voice: