"It's the same with all of them," said one of the ragamuffins. "They talk nonsense when they get sleepy. They all look as if they were starved."
Manuel felt as garrulous as a mountebank. When he had wearied, he leaned against a heap of stones and with arms crossed prepared to sleep.
Shortly after this the group of curiosity-hunters had dispersed; only a guard and an old gentleman were left, and they discussed the ragamuffins in tones of pity.
The gentleman deplored the way these children were abandoned and said that in other countries they built schools and asylums and a thousand other things. The guard shook his head dubiously. At last he summed up the conversation, saying in the tranquil manner of a Galician:
"Take my word for it: there's no good left in any of them."
Manuel, hearing this, began to tremble; he arose from his place on the ground, left the Puerta del Sol and began to wander aimlessly about.
"There's no good left in any of them!" The remark had made a deep impression upon him. Why wasn't he good? Why? He examined his life. He wasn't bad, he had harmed nobody. He hated El Carnicerín because that fellow had robbed him of happiness, had made it impossible for him to go on living in the one corner where he had found some affection and shelter. Then contradicting himself, he imagined that perhaps he was bad after all, and in this case the most he could do was to reform and become better.
Absorbed in these reflections, he was passing along Alcalá Street when he heard his name called several times. It was La Mellá and La Rabanitos, skulking in a doorway.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"Nothing, man. Just a word with you. Have you come into your money yet?"