“Look here, leave me alone; you’re making my head hot.”
El Manano, in the midst of the confusion, at that moment doubtless remembered his business of charcoal-burning, for he examined closely his interlocutor’s head, which was huge, and murmured in a thick voice:
“Why, it would take a whole cartload of wood even to soften it a little!”
Everybody laughed when they saw El Sardino’s expression of indignation, and went on talking.
“One can do nothing here,” said Pacheco to Springer. “We talk a lot, but words are as far as we get. We Andalusians are very like the colts from this part of the country: a great deal of hoof with very little sole.”
“Don’t say that, Señor José,” Cornejo ejaculated indignantly.
“I say it because it is true. What do all those men on the committee do? Will you tell me? What good is that Lodge?”
“Even God’s interpreter don’t know that,” said El Manano, who had joined the group in the last stages of alcoholic intoxication. “But here,” and he struck his chest, “is a man, Señor José ... a man among men ... willing to die on a barricade. Sí, Señor ... and whenever you or Don Quentin give the signal, we’ll get after the Oscurantistas.... Long live the Constipation, and death to Isabella II!”
“That will do, that will do. Get out,” said the bandit.
“But I’m always liberal, Señor José ... here, and everywhere else....”