When they opened the old man’s will, they found that his fortune, almost in its entirety, with the exception of a few bequests to two distant relatives, was left to Fuensanta. The fortune, including the money and the house, amounted to somewhere near thirty thousand dollars.
Then Fuensanta and El Pende tried to rent the whole lower floor of the house on the Calle de la Zapatería, with the idea of converting it into a large warehouse. The landlord was willing, but the man who rented the mat store said that he would not move, that he had a ten-year contract with the landlord, and that he did not intend to leave. They offered to pay him an indemnity, but he persisted in his recalcitrant attitude.
And maybe the fool wasn’t stubborn! El Capita was a man of evil intent with a magnificent history. Some time ago he lived with a widow who had two daughters in school. When the elder daughter graduated, the man fell in love with her, and married her; though he continued his relations with her mother. El Capita was an artful chap. His wife found out about the affair, and was indignant. She ran away with her husband’s clerk out of revenge; but El Capita did not worry about the matter. Along came the second daughter, and El Capita, who was very astute, began to make advances to her, which she, more accommodating than her elder sister, willingly accepted.
El Capita was very content with his store; doubtless he had an affection for all those panniers and headstalls—mute witnesses of his drunken parties and tempestuous love affairs, and he got it into his head that he was not going to move. But the man reckoned without his hostess; and in this case, his hostess was Fuensanta, who when she said that she was going to do a thing, did it regardless of all obstacles.
Fuensanta very quietly transferred the inherited silversmith’s shop; then she sold the house in the Calle de Librerías, and with the money from the transfer and the sale, bought the house in the Calle de la Zapatería; and El Capita had to get out in a hurry, willy nilly, with all his pack-saddles and panniers.
Fuensanta and El Pende converted the whole lower floor into a warehouse. They furnished the barracks and the prison with goods at wholesale; but as they did not wish to kill their retail trade, they rented a store in the Calle de la Espartería near the Arco Alto and the Calle de Gitanos. This place, which was known in ancient times by the name of El Gollizno on account of its extreme narrowness, is one of the busiest corners in Cordova. Certainly there . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
“Good lord! Another digression?” exclaimed Quentin. “Haven’t you finished yet?”
“Yes.”
“Tell us the rest,” said the old woman. “What happened to that El Pende fellow?”