“Is Don Rafael in?” Quentin asked a clerk.
“There, in the back room.”
Quentin went in, and found himself in a small room with various shelves full from top to bottom of tins of all kinds and colours, bottles, flasks, and jars. One breathed there a mixed odour of cinnamon, petroleum, coffee, and cod-fish. In that little shop of nutritious produce, three persons were engaged in conversation with Don Rafael. Quentin greeted them and sat down.
One of the three persons was a prebendary by the name of Espego, whom they called Espejito on account of his small stature. Espejito had a sly look, and was pacing about the back room with his hands behind his back.
The second member of the coterie was a lean man with very thin legs, which were wide apart like those of a compass; he had a face like a tunny-fish, with a fixed, penetrating, and suspicious glance. He was called Camacha, and was a solicitor. He wore a short moustache, side-whiskers that reached to the bottom of his ears, a broad-brimmed hat tipped to one side, and very tight trousers.
The third member was leaning back in a chair; he was a sexagenarian with a roman profile; his face was full of fleshy wrinkles; his nose, crooked and aquiline, hung over his upper lip like a vulture over its prey; his eyes were staring and sunken; his mouth contemptuous and bitter, and his skin, lemon-coloured. He wore a black handkerchief tied about his head; over it, a broad-brimmed hat, also black; and over his shoulders, a roomy, dark-brown cloak with large folds.
This gentleman, the owner of a number of farms about Cordova, was called Don Matías Armenta.
The four men talked slowly and disjointedly.
“I believe there are guarantees,” murmured one of them from time to time.
“That’s what I think.”