He listened grumpily to what Roberto had to say; then he lighted a cigar and flung the match far away. Doubtless because of the exiguity of his organ, he found it necessary to stop the windows of his nose with his fingers in order to smoke.
Roberto thought at first that the man had not understood his question, and he repeated it twice. Tabuenca gave no heed; but all at once, seized with the utmost indignation, he snatched the cigar furiously from his mouth and began to blaspheme in a whining, gull-like voice, shrieking that he couldn't make out why folks pestered him with matters that didn't concern him a particle.
"Don't shout so," said Roberto, provoked by this rumpus. "They'll imagine that we've come here to assassinate you, at the very least."
"I shout because I please to."
"All right, man; shout away to your heart's content."
"Don't you talk to me like that or I'll push in your face," yelled
Tabuenca.
"You'll push in my face?" retorted Roberto, laughing; then, turning to Manuel, he added, "These noseless fellows get on my nerves and I'm going to let this flat-nose have it."
Tabuenca, his mind made up, withdrew and returned in a short while with a rapier-cane, which he unsheathed; Roberto looked in every direction for something with which he might defend himself, and found a carter's stick; Tabuenca aimed a thrust at Roberto, who parried it with the stick; then another thrust, and Roberto, as again he parried it, smashed the lantern at the entrance, leaving the scene in darkness. Roberto began to strike out right and left and he must have landed once upon some delicate part of Tabuenca's anatomy, for the man began to shout in horrible tones:
"Assassins! Murder!"
At this, several persons came running into the zaguán, among them a stout mule-driver with an oil-lamp in his hand.