"Is there any bread about?"
"The baker has not come yet, but you can have some of mine," returned the girl, smiling.
"All right; let me see this bread of yours."
So they repaired to the kitchen, and the servant lifting the lid from the bread-pan, Don Mateo took out a moderate-sized piece of almost black rye bread.
"All right; I don't object to your black bread," he said, cutting himself a piece. "Health to the darkies," he then added, with a jocoseness he had not ventured to display for years, as he swallowed a mouthful. The servant smiled, astonished at his good humor.
"It has more flavor than ours. If it were not quite so hard!"
He then brushed away the crumbs with his hand, readjusted his spectacles, and after taking a draft of water—for the wine was also locked up—he sallied forth in the direction of the Town Hall. The clock of the building was striking ten. He passed through the great portico, mounted the wide, stone staircase, and arriving at the corridor, where the dust was more than an inch thick, he asked Marcones, who came forward, for Don Gabino.
"The mayor is sitting."
"Sitting! The deuce he is! At this hour?"
It was, in fact, a rare occurrence. Two years had elapsed since the death of Don Roque, and those of the Club who then took office at the Town Hall with Don Rufo as mayor for more than a year and a half were now reaping the consequences of subsequent defeat. They were still in the majority in the municipal corporation, but the Cabin party finally worked so effectually in Madrid that Gabino Maza was elected mayor. It was said that this was due to the hateful treachery of Rojas Salcedo, who, noting at the previous municipal elections that the power of the Cabin party was on the increase, now went over to that side. Thus the storm of hatred and abuse passed upon him by the supporters of Don Belinchon was indescribable.