After a few words we have heard him utter, the worthy Don Benito rose carelessly, and prepared, with many an oath, to close his establishment, so at any rate to save in candles, when suddenly an individual entered, then two, then ten, and at last such a number that the locandero gave up all attempts at counting them.
These men were all wrapped up in cloaks; their heads were covered by felt hats, whose broad brims, pulled down carefully over their eyes, rendered them perfectly unrecognisable.
The room was soon crowded with customers drinking and smoking, but not uttering a word.
The extraordinary thing was that, although all the tables were lined, such a religious silence prevailed among these strange bibbers that the noise of the rain pattering outside could be distinctly heard, as well as the footfall of the horses ridden by the serenos, which resounded hoarsely on the pebbles or in the muddy ponds that covered the ground.
The host, agreeably surprised by this sudden turn of fortune, had joyfully set to work serving his unexpected customers; but all at once a singular thing happened, which Señor Sarzuela was far from anticipating. Although the proverb say that you can never have enough of a good thing—and proverbs are the wisdom of nations—it happened that the affluence of people, who appeared to have made an appointment at his house, became so considerable, and assumed such gigantic proportions, that the landlord himself began to be terrified; for his hostelry, empty a moment previously, was now so crammed that he soon did not know where to put the new arrivals who continued to flock in. In fact the crowd, after filling the common room, had, like a rising tide, flowed over into the adjoining room, then it escaladed the stairs, and spread over the upper floors.
At the first stroke of eleven more than two hundred customers occupied the Locanda del Sol.
The locandero, with that craft which was one of the most salient points of his character, then comprehended that something extraordinary was about to happen, and that his house would be the scene.
At the thought a convulsive tremor seized upon him, his hair began to stand on end, and he sought in his brain for the means he must employ to get rid of these sinister and silent guests.
In his despair he rose with an air which he sought to render most resolute, and walked to the door as if for the purpose of closing his establishment. The customers, still silent as fish, did not make a sign of moving; on the contrary, they pretended they noticed nothing.
Don Benito felt his nervousness redoubled.