"I came on the …" and Manuel let loose a stream of obscenity.
Then, in very ugly humour, he began to stare in every direction, making all manner of efforts not to fall asleep.
At a table set aside a man who looked like a horse-dealer was discussing the flamenco song and dance with a cross-eyed fellow bearing every appearance of an assassin.
"There's no more artists," the horse-dealer was saying. "Once upon a time folks came here to see Pinto, Canito, the Feos, the Macarronas…. Now what? Now, nothing. Pullets in vinegar."
"That's what," agreed the cross-eyed assassin, very seriously.
"That's the musician," said Chivato, pointing to the latter.
The two singers did not remain very long at the table with Leandro and Manuel. The cross-eyed fellow was already on the platform; he began to tune the guitar, and six women sat down around him in a row, beginning to clap hands in time to the music; Tarugo rose from her seat and started a side dance, and was soon wiggling her hips convulsively; the singer commenced to gargarize softly; at intervals he would be silent and then nothing would be heard save the snapping of Tarugo's fingers and the clatter of her heels, which played the counterpoint.
After the Malaga singer had finished, a gipsy youth with a chocolate complexion got up and executed a tango and a negro dance; he twisted himself in and out, thrust his abdomen forward and his arms back. He wound up with effeminate undulations of his hips and a most complicated intertwining of arms and legs.
"That's what you call art!" commended! the horse-dealer.
"See here, I'm going," grumbled Manuel.