Señor Custodio came out and embraced her. She was the ragdealer's daughter of whom Manuel was forever hearing and whom, without knowing just why, he had imagined as a very thin, emaciated, disagreeable creature.
Justa walked into the kitchen and after looking over the chairs, to see whether there was anything on them that might soil her clothes, she sat down upon one of them. She began to pour forth a flood of unceasing chatter and roared at her own jokes.
Manuel listened without a word; to tell the truth she wasn't quite so good-looking as he had imagined, but she didn't please him any the less for that. She might be about eighteen, was brunette, rather short, with very dark, flashing eyes, a tilted, pert nose, a sensual mouth and thick lips. She was, too, a bit full behind and in the breasts and the hips; she was neat, fresh, with a very high top-knot and a pair of brand-new, polished slippers.
As Justa gabbled on, to the ecstasy of her parents, there came into the kitchen a hump-backed fellow from one of the neighbouring hovels; he was called El Conejo (the rabbit) and his face really showed a great resemblance to the amiable rodent whose name he bore.
El Conejo was a member of Señor Custodio's fraternity and knew Justa since she had been a child; Manuel used to see him every day, but never paid any attention to him.
The Rabbit walked into Señor Custodio's and began to talk nonsense, laughing in violent outbursts, but in so mechanical a manner that it provoked his hearers, for it seemed that behind this continuous laughter lay a very deep bitterness. Justa touched his hump, for, as is known, this brings good luck, whereupon El Conejo exploded with merriment.
"Have you been lugged up again before the chief?" she asked.
"Oh, yes. Often … hee-hee …"
"What for?"
"Because the other day I started to shout in the street: 'Bargains! Who'll buy Sagasta's umbrella, Kruger's hat, the Pope's urinal, a syringe lost by a nun while she was talking with the sacristan! …"