Several ragamuffins between fifteen and twenty years of age burst into the place, took possession of a corner and settled down to a game of cané.
“You bunch of rascals!” cried the old beggar near Manuel. “You had to choose this place to come and gamble in. Damn it!”
“Wow! Listen to what old Wrinkle-face is bawling about now!” retorted one of the gamins.
“Shut your mouth, Old Bore! You’re as bad as Don Nicanor pounding his drum,” jeered another.
“Tramps! Vagabonds!” growled the old fellow angrily.
Manuel turned toward the fuming old man. He was a diminutive creature, with a sparse, greyish beard; he had a pair of eyes that looked like scars and black spectacles that reached to the middle of his forehead. He wore a patched, grimy coat; a flat, woolen cap, on top of which sat a derby with a greasy brim. As he had entered, he had disburdened himself of a canvas bag which he dropped to the floor.
“It’s these whippersnappers that get us in wrong,” explained the old man. “Last year they robbed the shelter telephone and stole a piece of lead from a water-pipe.”
Manuel swept the room with his glance. Near him, a tall old fellow with a white beard and the features of an apostle, leaned his shoulder against one of the pillars, immersed in his thoughts; he wore a smock, a muffler and a cap. In the corner occupied by the impudent, blustering ragamuffins rose the silhouette of a man garbed in black,—the type of a retired official. On his knees reposed the head of a slumbering boy of five or six.
All the rest were of bestial appearance; beggars that looked like highwaymen; maimed and crippled who roamed the streets exhibiting their deformities; unemployed labourers, now inured to idleness, amongst whom was an occasional specimen of a ruined gentleman, with straggling beard and greasy locks, whose bearing and apparel,—collar, cravat and cuffs, filthy as they might be,—still recalled a certain distinction,—a pallid reflection of the splendour that once had been.
The air in the room very soon grew hot, and the atmosphere, saturated with the odour of tobacco and poverty, became nauseating.