All the scrupulousness which Uncle Patas' wife did not feel in other matters she reserved, no doubt, for the accounts. Herself accustomed to pilfer, she knew to the least detail every trick of the servants, and not a céntimo escaped her; she always thought she was being robbed. Such was her spirit of economy that at home they ate stale bread, thus confirming the popular saying, "in the house of the smith, a wooden knife."
The sister-in-law, an uncouth peasant with a stubby nose, carroty cheeks, abundant breasts and hips, could give lessons in avarice to her sister, while in the matter of immodesty and undignified comportment she outdistanced her. She would go about the store with her bosom exposed and there wasn't a delivery-man who missed a chance to pinch her.
"What a fatty you are! Oh!" they would all exclaim.
And it was as if all this frequently fingered fat didn't belong to her, for she raised no protest. Should any one, however, try to get the best of her on the price of a roll, she would turn into a wild beast.
On Sunday afternoons Uncle Patas, his wife and his sister-in-law were in the habit of playing mus on a little table in the middle of the road; they never dared to leave the store alone.
After Manuel had been here for three months, Petra carne to see Uncle Patas and asked him to give her boy a regular wage. Uncle Patas burst into laughter; the request struck him as the very height of absurdity and he answered No, that it was impossible, that the boy didn't even earn the bread he ate.
Then Petra sought out another place for Manuel and brought him to a bakery on Horno de la Mata Street where he was to learn the trade.
As the beginning of his apprenticeship he was assigned to the furnace as assistant to the man who removed the loaves from the oven. The work was beyond his strength. He had to get up at eleven in the night and commence by scraping the iron pans in which the smaller loaves were baked; after they were cleaned he would go over them with a brush dipped in melted butter; this accomplished he would help his superior remove the live coals from the oven with an iron instrument; then, while the baker baked the bread he would lift very heavy boards laden with rolls and carry them to the kneading-trough at the mouth of the furnace; when the baker placed the rolls inside Manuel would take the board back to the kneading-trough. As the bread came out of the oven he would moisten it with a brush dipped in water so as to make the crust shiny. At eleven in the morning the work was over, and during the intervals of idleness Manuel and the workmen would sleep.
This life was horribly hard.
The bakery occupied a dark cellar, as gloomy as it was dirty. It was below the level of the street and had two windows the panes of which were so covered with dust and spiders' webs that only a murky, yellowish light filtered through. They worked at all hours by gas.