“You people had the power and you didn’t use it very well for the town. Now just leave it to me.”
In exchange for Don Calixto’s surrender, Cæsar agreed to have his Papal title legalized.
At the end of a year and a half Cæsar had all the bosses of Castro in his fist.
“Suppressing the bosses in the district was easy,” Cæsar used to say; “I managed to have one make all the others innocuous, and then I made that one, who was Don Calixto, innocuous and gave him a title.”
Cæsar did not forget or neglect the least detail. He listened to everybody that talked to him, even though they had nothing but nonsense to say; he always answered letters, and in his own handwriting.
With the townpeople he used the tactics of knowing all their names, especially the old folks’, and for this purpose he carried a little note-book. He wrote down, for example: “Señor Ramón, was in the Carlist war; Uncle Juan, suffers with rheumatism.”
When, by means of his notes, he remembered these details, it produced an extraordinary effect on people. Everybody considered himself the favourite.
CÆSAR’S MANNER OF LIVING
Cæsar lived simply; he had a room in an hotel in the Carrera de San Jerónimo, where he received calls; but nobody ever found him there except in business hours.
He used to go now and then to Alzugaray’s house, where he would talk over various matters with his friend’s mother and sister; he would find out about everything, and go away after giving them advice on questions of managing their money, which they almost always observed and followed.