"It won't do at all."

"It's no condescension on my part; you can put me to the test."

"Well, then, this time I command you to take the two corners of this sheet and stretch them out in that direction hard—not so hard, man, how you pull me! That's the way! that's the way! Now double it as I do—so—one corner over the other—good!—now stretch it out again—more, ever so much more—that's it! Now fold it again; pull it out once more! There, that'll do. Now come towards me,—let me have it; I can manage it now. Here's another. Take the two corners—shake it well and stretch it out. Be careful, for this one has a ruffle—don't tear it! These are mamma's and Maria's sheets."

"How it would shock Maria if she knew I were folding her sheets!" cried Ricardo, laughing.

"Why, yes; the sheets themselves are. Mamma and she like very fine ones, and have theirs made of batiste; but papa and I like them coarser. I can't bear fine sheets; I slip about in them and can't get settled. We are careful not to put any kind of ruffles on papa's, for the touch of starch tries his nerves, and the rustling keeps him awake. It's a hobby of his. Just imagine when he is travelling, and at some house they put on sheets with trimmings, he takes the trouble to pull the bed to pieces and put the ruffling under the mattress at his feet. I don't like them either, but if I find them on, I put up with them. Papa has a good many hobbies. Every night he has to go asleep with a cigar in his mouth. I walk up and down near his room until I see that he is asleep, and then I go in very gently and take the cigar from his mouth and put out the light.—Don't pull so hard, for my arms ache already. The truth is, I make you do very improper things for a military man; isn't that so?"

"Don't you believe it! At college, and even after we left, at boarding-houses we had to do much worse things. How many buttons have I sewed on in my life! And how many times I have patched my trowsers when they were worn through!"

"Really?"

"Certainly!"

Marta was sincerely astonished. She could not understand that a man should have to descend to such duties when there are so many women in the world, and she asked particularly about his college life,—how they were treated, what they ate, at what time they went to bed, who attended to their rooms, who did their washing and ironing, were their mattresses hard or soft, did they drink wine, how many times a week they gave them clean towels, etc., etc. Ricardo answered all her questions, giving a circumstantial account of his college habits with the fulness of one who has very fresh recollections, and is not bored in recounting them. From college customs he passed to his adventures, relating those which might be told to a young girl, and amusing himself above all in painting in the darkest colors the tribulations of freshman year[28] and the cruelties practised upon them by the seniors,[29] who compelled them to spend whole nights making cigarettes of sand so as to learn to make better ones of tobacco; in the street they would make them sit down on the stone seats and not let them get up till they gave them permission; they seated them at table, even though they had dined, just for the fun of the thing; those who were weakest would vomit or faint; one fellow who ventured to rebel against a galonista they kept for six months face to face with a stone wall, during all play hours, until he was taken ill with jaundice and almost died. One Sunday afternoon, while he was in the hall with five other freshmen[30] reading a novel, two seniors came in and beat them furiously with cudgels until they were tired out, and gave him a painful cut near his eye.

Marta listened with profound attention, showing in her face all the phases of indignation. She pulled with greater and greater force on the sheets, and folded them any way, without taking her eyes from the narrator's. From time to time she exclaimed, "But, good Heavens,[31] that is abominable! Those men are crazy; why didn't you tell the president about such cruelties?" Ricardo could not persuade her that it would have been useless to rebel or tell the colonel, since hazing[32] was a traditional custom in the college which the officers did not care to root out. To all his reasonings she replied, "Well, I would have gone to the colonel, and if he had not made it right for me, I would have run away from college."