Don Segis raised his glass to his eyes, attentively examined the golden liquid, put it to his lips, and slowly drank it. After coughing a little, and drying his mouth with a silk handkerchief, he said gravely:
"Tush! There is not a kind spirit about it, as we all say; but it is best to take such things calmly, it is no good exciting one's self."
This was a fresh blow to the curate, who had hoped to find his indignation shared by Don Segis, and he was dumb with suppressed rage. It was thus that the chaplain of the Augustine convent was able to pay Don Benigno out for his uncalled-for partiality to the rising convent. The curate then addressed himself to Señor Anselmo and to Don Juan, "the Old Salt," who both expressed disgust at the paragraph, without, however, showing much interest in the subject, for we know that that would not have been in keeping with the quiet character of the patriarchal gathering.
But on the following Thursday, Alvaro Peña left Don Benigno, and attacked the chaplain of the nuns, making him the subject of a description in verse, and giving a graceful reference to the mingling of the glasses of gin with the quarterns of white wine. It was then Don Segis's turn to be furious, and Don Benigno's to be calm. But it was evident that this calmness was only put on, merely assumed to pay Don Segis off for his want of sympathy, for, as a matter of fact, he was still bleeding from his wound. Therefore it was not long before a reconciliation took place, and they both agreed, with unusual ardor, to skin every one who wrote in Don Rosendo's paper, beginning with the founder himself, and ending with the owner of the printing press. They were quite aware that Alvaro Peña was the author of the insults, but as every one had always known that he was a soulless vampire, capable of sucking the blood of all the clerics of Sarrio, to avoid harping on the same string they soon turned from him and laid all the blame on Sinforoso.
They considered themselves justified in this course, because the young fellow had been a seminarist, and consequently a traitor. Then he came from the same stock, for his father was a Carlist, and his grandfather before him. Moreover, Don Rosendo Belinchon, Don Rudesindo, and Alvaro Peña and Don Rufo, all men of certain position in the town, might have some license and do as they liked—"but that puppy! that ragamuffin!"
Excited by the murmur of applause, Don Benigno drank a few more quarterns than usual, and the chaplain would not let himself be outdone.
When the men left the shop in the classic chain, Don Segis noticed that his swelled leg dragged less than usual, and he remarked it to Don Benigno, who congratulated him on the fact. Then when, a few steps later, they reached the walls of the Augustine convent, Don Segis said in a loud voice, that as he felt no desire to go to bed that night he would go on with him. But the curate whispered in his ear that he would like to speak to him in private, so both remained in front of the convent.
"Friend Don Segis, what do you think of going and pulling Perinolo's son's nose for him?"
"Gently! gently! gently!"
"If we could only give him a hiding, without any scandal, of course."