Whilst concluding the meal so indecorously, he kept up a stream of complaints against it, and Don Cristobal, at whom he cast sundry angry glances, seemed to be held in some degree responsible for it.
Suddenly the door was opened with a great clamour, and four girls rushed into the room in such a state of excitement that the little party was quite taken aback. Without paying any attention to the others, they all turned to Quiñones' majordomo:
"Manin, a bear! Manin, a bear!"
"Where?" he asked, without moving.
"In the wood."
"Who put it there?"
The four stood astounded at this strange question. At last one of them ventured timidly to remark:
"He came by himself."
"Bah! bah! bah!" returned the majordomo rudely.
And he returned to his lumps of bread with more ardour than ever, which perhaps justified malicious people of the town saying that they did not want to hear of the bears he had killed, for he was nothing but a rustic clown.