“Bah, man. Once you get used to it, it’s far easier than rolling off a log.”
Manuel worked away at the cases whenever he could, trying his best to acquire speed; some nights he actually set up lines, and how proud it made him afterward to see them in print!
Jesús amused himself by teasing the Jew, mimicking his manner of speech. They had both been living for some months in the same tenement, Yaco (his real name was Jacob) with his family and Jesús with his two sisters.
Jesús delighted to drive Jacob out of all patience and hear him utter picturesque maledictions in his soft, mellifluous language with its long-drawn s’s.
According to Jesús, at Jacob’s home his wife, his father-in-law and he himself spoke the weirdest jargon imaginable,—a mixture of Arabic and archaic Spanish that sounded exceedingly rare.
“Do you remember, Yaco,” Jesús would ask, imitating the Jew’s pronunciation, “when you brought your wife, Mesoda, that canary? And she asked you: ‘Ah, Yaco, what sort of bird is this with yellow wings?’ And you answered her: ‘Ah, Mesoda! This bird is a canary and I have brought it for you.’”
Jacob, seeing everybody laugh at him, would cast a terrible glance at Jesús and cry out:
“Wretch that you are! May you be struck by a dart that blots out your name from the book of the living!”
“And when Mesoda said to you,” continued Jesús, “‘Stay here, Yaco, stay with me. Ah, Yaco, how ill I am! I have a dove in my heart, a hammer on each breast and a fish on my neck. Call my baba; have her bring me a twig of letuario, Yaco!’”
These domestic intimacies, thus treated in jest, exasperated Jacob; hearing them, he lost his temper completely and his imprecations outdistanced those of Camilla.