Manuel lay back in his cot and listened to the conversation that had sprung up between Jesús and the old man with the black spectacles. The fellow was an inveterate beggar, a connoisseur in all the arts of exploiting official charity.
Despite his continuous wanderings hither and thither, he had never been more than five or six leagues away from Madrid.
“Once upon a time this shelter was a good place,” he explained to Jesús. “There was a stove; each cot had its woollen blanket, and in the morning everybody got a good plate of soup.”
“Yes, water soup,” sneered another beggar, a young, thin, long-haired lad whose cheeks were browned by the sun.
“Even so. It warmed a fellow’s innards.”
The man of refinement, doubtless disgusted to find himself amid this rout of ragamuffins, took the sleeping child in his arms and drew near to the place occupied by Manuel and Jesús. He joined the conversation and began to relate his tribulations. Sad as his story was, there was yet something comical about it.
He came from a provincial capital, having left a modest position and believed in the words of the district deputy, who promised him a situation in the offices of the Ministry. For two months he tagged at the heels of the deputy; at the end of this time he found himself face to face with the direst poverty, absolutely without influence or recourse. In the meantime he was writing to his wife, inspiring her with hope.
The previous day he had been thrown out of his boarding-house and after having tramped over half of Madrid without finding a way to earn a peseta, had gone to the authorities and asked for an officer to conduct him and his child to some shelter. “I take only beggars to the shelter,” was the guard’s reply. “I’m going out begging,” answered the man humbly, “so you can take me.” “No,” was the officer’s answer. “First you must actually beg, then I’ll arrest you.”
The officer was intractable. At this moment a man happened to be going by. The father approached him with his child, brought his hand to his hat, but the request could not issue from his lips. It was then that the guard advised him to go to the Asilo de las Delicias.
“If they’d arrested you, you’d have gained nothing by it,” said the fellow with the black spectacles. “They’d have taken you off to the Cerro del Pimiento, and you’d have spent the livelong day there without so much as a crumb.”