“And where is he?” asked the lady.
“In Orbajosa.”
“I think he is stopping at Polavieja’s,” observed Jacinto.
“Your nephew and Brigadier Batalla are intimate friends,” continued Pinzon; “they are always to be seen together in the streets.”
“Well, my friend, that gives me a bad idea of your chief,” said Doña Perfecta.
“He is—he is very good-natured,” said Pinzon, in the tone of one who, through motives of respect, did not venture to use a harsher word.
“With your permission, Señor Pinzon, and making an honorable exception in your favor, it must be said that in the Spanish army there are some curious types——”
“Our brigadier was an excellent soldier before he gave himself up to spiritualism.”
“To spiritualism!”
“That sect that calls up ghosts and goblins by means of the legs of a table!” said the canon, laughing.