Palomares had a great talent for labelling his mixtures. When he had faked up something, he called it “Extra-Superior”; if the fake was so complete that one could not tell what kind of a product it was, then he called it “Superior” or “Fine.”
Besides these hyperbolical names, there were other more modest ones, such as “First Class,” “Second Class,” and “Third Class.” These divisions were hard to define; yet Palomares asserted, not that they were good, but that one could easily distinguish a difference between them.
According to him, it was clear that the “Second Class” was worse than the “First Class,” and that the “Third Class” was worse than the “Second Class”; but this was not saying that the “First Class” and the “Second Class” were good, or even passably so.
In spite of the chemistry that El Pende and his assistant employed, the store grew in reputation. The show-window was full of sausages wrapped in tinfoil, prunes, and tins of preserves. On the shelves were loaves of sugar, bottles of sherry, and jugs of gin. Upon the floor in sacks, were rice, kidney-beans, and casks of sardines.
Money began to flow into the store in such a quiet and unobtrusive manner that no one was aware of it. The old silversmith grumbled at the thought that some fine day they would leave him; but Fuensanta deceived him by telling him that the store was not getting along very well, and that they would get rid of it if they had a chance.
El Pende, who lacked the patience of his wife, wished to emancipate himself completely from the old man, so he rented the first floor of the house in which the store was located, giving the back room to Palomares.
Then Fuensanta hired a servant girl, and every minute she had free, she went to keep the old silversmith company. This procedure was very much praised by the old wives of the community, and Fuensanta enjoyed much popularity. At the same time, El Pende succeeded in making people forget his family nickname, and everybody called him Rafael, or Señor Rafael, and some even called him Don Rafael.
The family was progressing economically, and acquiring more respectability, when the lad Quentin began to make trouble. He ran away from home; he stole; once he came near poisoning the whole family; he did terrible things.
Then the old Marquis, to whose knowledge his grandson’s escapades had come, had him brought before him and sent him away to school in England.
Quentin left, and the family continued their progress. Fuensanta had her fourth child, a daughter; and during the confinement, Don Andrés Salvador, the silversmith, died from heart failure.