“Señor Sergeant, perhaps you could do me a favour ...” added Manuel.
“What?”
“If there’s any reporter around for police news, just tell him that I’m a compositor on El Mundo and that I’ve been arrested.”
“Very well. I’ll do so.”
Before a half hour had gone by the sergeant returned. He opened the gate and turned toward Manuel.
“Hey, you. Compositor. Out with you.”
Manuel stepped out, passed by the cage that held the women, saw La Chata and La Rabanitos in a knot of old prostitutes which contained a negress (all of them horrible), and hurriedly climbed the stairway to the room in which the reserve guards were sleeping. The sergeant opened the door, seized Manuel by the arm, gave him a kick with all his might and pushed him into the street.
The City Hall clock was at three; it was drizzling; Manuel went off by the Calle de Ciudad Rodrigo to take shelter in the arches of the Plaza Mayor, and as he was weary, he sat down upon a door step. He was about to doze off when a man who looked like a professional beggar took a seat beside him. The fellow said he was a soldier back from Cuba,—that he could find no employment and, as far as that was concerned, was no good for work any more, as he had got used to living in constant flight.
“After all,” continued the returned soldier, “I’ve got my luck with me. If I haven’t died this winter, I’ll never die.”
The two spent the night huddled close to one another, and the next morning went to the Plaza de la Cebada on a foraging expedition. The soldier pilfered some nuts from a pile, and this constituted the breakfast of the two comrades.