"It is all right," Luis reassured us; "you have suffered the worst. There are only two in the town."
A crowd of urchins carrying home-made boot-blacking boxes pestered us with offers of "Limpia botas." A man and a woman sauntered between the tables bellowing and screaming "Les numeros"; these were state lottery sellers.
Also there were sellers of local lotteries, which were promoted by the Church in aid of the disabled whom they employed to sell the tickets. Nuns, too, were amongst the beggars. There were boys selling newspapers; men selling meringues and pastry, others hawking fried almonds, very salt to excite thirst; children hunting between the legs of the tables and chairs for cast cigarette ends or straws discarded by the drinkers; a man peddling minor toilet articles—toothpicks, scent, powder, buttonhooks—and another with a basket of very odorous dried fish.
The smell of the fish banished our new-won universal brotherhood and we waved the fish vender away without courtesy. But an elegantly dressed young man sitting near accosted him and began to chaff him. But what was pretence to the dude was earnest to the salesman. He had some talent for selling and he pestered the dude for nearly half an hour, at the end of which the latter in self-defence and for the sake of peace bought a portion of the smelly commerce. Probably the fishmonger's total gain out of the transaction was a fraction of a penny. But the Spanish is not a wasteful nation. When the dude walked off home he took with him the fish wrapped in his newspaper.
At last we called the waiter by the Spanish custom of clapping the hands, paid for the drinks, and guided by Luis set out to visit the house which our friend had lent us for the summer. Habits of cleanliness were shown in the streets. Young girls were hard at work, each industriously brushing the dust from the sidewalk in front of her house, even though that sidewalk were itself of dried mud. To us it seemed that the story was being repeated of the old woman who tried to besom the tide out of her front door.
Many of the householders had spread their sphere of influence even beyond the sidewalk, and had soaked their patch of road, turning the dust into viscous mud. The pavements were already beginning to be encumbered by chairs, and by groups of people sitting out in the cooling day.
The Paseo de Corveras is a one-sided street darkened by tall trees. On the other side stretch maize fields surrounding a small farm, and walled-in gardens filled with tall feathery date palms. The dates were already hanging in orange clusters beneath the sprouting heads of fronds. Luis took us to the house of Antonio Garrigos, who lived at No. 12.
Antonio was a handsome man of pure Spanish type, giving an impression of nervous vitality. He produced three keys, each of about a pound in weight and large as any key of a theatrical gaoler. The house key was of monstrous size, and he assured us that we would have to carry it with us wherever we went. Our friend's apartment at No. 26 was on the first floor and spread right across two humbler dwellings below. It was cool and roomy, filled with specimens of Spanish draperies, pottery and furniture, which he had collected during several years in Spain. At the back was a kitchen, with large earthen vessels for water, and Spanish grids for cooking on charcoal. The bed was big for one, but very small for two, so we suggested taking off the spring mattress and laying planks in its place. Antonio at once said that to-morrow he would get the planks in time for the night.