"Better is the stalled ox where love is, than a dinner of herbs and poverty therewith."
"Just enough learning to misquote," quoted Don Gil, laughing also, but in a preoccupied manner.
"Perhaps it would be better to say 'just enough appetite.' My dinners are bad enough, since Plumero left me."
"Better to have him leave you, even if under a guard of soldiers, padre, than to let him put you where you can eat no more dinners. What was that, padre? Did you hear anything?"
"Nothing, my boy, but Jorge Toleto calling us to dinner. The willing ear, you know."
Don Gil ushered the old man into the comidor. His tall figure was bent and thin. The shabby black coat, whose seams shone with a generation's wear, flapped its tails about the legs of his scant white trousers. The good priest's figure was one in which absurdity and dignity were inextricably combined. The padre showed his years. He had never quite recovered from the attack made upon him by his trusted servant Plumero, the Good—Plumero, who now languished in the cep' over at Saltona.
The savory meal was ended. The night was warm and close.
"Let us sit upon the veranda and enjoy our cigarillos, padre."
Silencio seemed unlike himself. He was nervous, ill at ease. He had no sooner seated himself than he arose and paced the long veranda, the spark of his cigarette, only, showing his whereabouts. He looked often out to sea, and often in the direction of the lanterna de señales, whose ray was hidden from sight by the near hill.