It was already the beginning of autumn; Leandro, on the advice of
Señor Ignacio, was living with his aunt on Aguila street; Milagros
continued keeping company with Lechuguino. Manuel gave up going with
Vidal and Bizco on their skirmishes and joined the company of
Rebolledo and the two Aristas.
The elder, Aristón, entertained him and frightened him out of his wits with lugubrious tales of cemeteries and ghosts; the little Aristas continued his gymnastic exercises; he had constructed a springboard by placing a plank upon a heap of sand and there he practised his death-defying leaps.
One day Alonso, Tabuenca's aid, appeared in the Corralón accompanied by a woman and a little girl.
The woman seemed old and weary; the tot was long and thin and pale.
Don Alonso found them a place in a dingy corner of the small patio.
They brought with them a small bundle of clothes, a dirty poodle with a very intelligent look, and a monkey tied to a chain; in a short while they had to sell the monkey to some gipsies that lived in the Quinta de Goya.
Don Alonso called Manuel and said to him:
"Run off and hunt up Don Roberto, and tell him that there's a woman here named Rosa, and that she is or has been a circus acrobat; she must be the one he's looking for."
At once Manuel went off to the house; Roberto had left the place and
Manuel did not know his whereabouts.
Don Alonso carne frequently to the Corralón and conversed with the mother and the girl. On the window-sill of their tiny home the mother and the daughter had a little box with a sprig of mint planted in it; although they watered it every morning, it scarcely grew, for there was no sun. One day the woman and child disappeared together with their pretty poodle; they left nothing in their quarters except a worn-out, broken tambourine.
Don Alonso got into the habit of visiting the Corralón; he would exchange a few words with Rebolledo, he of the modernist barber-shop who chattered away, and would witness the gymnastic prowess of Aristas. One afternoon the boy's mother asked the former Snake-Man whether the child showed any real aptitude.