“La Correspondencia! What name have thy sacrilegious lips pronounced? La Correspondencia! By the tail of Satan! A revolutionary, an anarchical, a nihilistic sheet. Quick! Cast away that venom before thou comest near the honorable dwelling of peaceful citizens. Hasten, run, fly, coachman! Hurrah, Cossack of the desert! On, drunkard, demagogue!”
The more extravagant the absurdities he strung together the more delighted were the drivers.
One morning Rogelio left the house wrapped up to the eyes in his cloak, for these closing days of October were bitterly cold, although the bright Madrid sun was shining in all its splendor. As usual, his errand was to go in search of a carriage for Doña Aurora. On reaching the corner of the square he caught sight of one of his favorite equipages—a landau whose lining of Abellano shagreen was less soiled and worn than that of the generality of those vehicles. The driver, a stout man, fair and ruddy, answering to the name of Martin, was a Galician. Rogelio made signs to him as he approached, crying:
“Martin, Martin of the cape! Ho, with the imperial chariot!”
The driver was conversing with a woman whose face was hidden from the student, but at the sound of Rogelio’s voice she turned around and he saw that she was young and not ill-looking, of humble appearance and dressed in mourning.
“Señorito, what a coincidence!” exclaimed Martin, as he recognized Rogelio. “This young girl is looking for the señorito’s house and she was just asking me the way there. She is a country-woman of ours. She brings a letter——”
“Will you let me look at the direction?” said the student, changing his manner and the tone of his voice completely, as he addressed the young girl.
The girl handed him the note, for it was only a note.
“Why, it is for mamma!” he said, as he looked at the superscription. “Come with me; I will show you where the house is. Do you, driver, follow in our resplendent wake with your imperial chariot, drawn by that stately swan.”
“Many thanks, Señorito,” said the girl in a sweet and well modulated voice, and with the sing-song accent peculiar to the Galicians of the coast. “There is no need for you to trouble yourself. I can see the door of the house from here; the driver pointed it out to me.”