He inquired after his friends in the taverns on the Andalucía cart-road, at La Llorosa, Las Injurias, and a chum of El Bizco, who was named El Chingui, told him that El Bizco was staying at Las Cambroneras, at the home of a well-known thieving strumpet called Dolores the Scandalous.
Manuel went off to Las Cambroneras, asked for Dolores and was shown a door in a patio inhabited by gipsies.
Manuel knocked, but Dolores refused to open the door; finally, after hearing the boy's explanations, she allowed him to come in.
Dolores' home consisted of a room about three metres square; in the rear could be made out a bed where El Bizco was sleeping in his clothes, beside a sort of vaulted niche with a chimney and a tiny fireplace. The furnishings of the room consisted of a table, a trunk, a white shelf containing plates and earthenware pots, and a pine wall-bracket that supported an oil-lamp.
Dolores was a woman of about fifty; she wore black clothes, a red kerchief knotted around her forehead like a bandage and another of some indistinct colour over her head.
Manuel called to El Bizco and, when the cross-eyed fellow awoke, asked after Vidal.
"He'll be here right away," said El Bizco, and then, turning upon the old lady, he growled: "Hey, you, fetch my boots."
Dolores was slow in executing his orders, whereupon El Bizco, wishing to show off his domination over the woman, struck her.
The woman did not even mumble; Manuel looked coldly at El Bizco, in disgust; the other averted his gaze.
"Want a bite?" asked El Bizco of Manuel when he had got out of bed.