“At a jeweller’s.”
“If you were to go to a jeweller’s in those rags of yours, with a diamond ring and a gold watch, it’s very likely that you’d be reported and taken off to prison.”
“Then what are we going to do? Could we pawn the watch?” asked Manuel.
“That’s dangerous, too. Let’s go and hunt up Marcos Calatrava, a friend of mine whom I got to know in Cuba. He’ll get us out of the fix. He lives in a boarding-house on the Calle de Embajadores.”
Thither they went. A woman came to the door and informed them that this Marcos had moved. The soldier made inquiries in a tavern on the ground floor of the house.
“Old Cripple! Sure I know him. I should say!” declared the tavern-keeper. “Do you know where he hangs around nights? In the Majo de las Cubas tavern, over on the Calle Mayor.”
To Manuel and the soldier this was one of the longest days in their lives. They were frightfully hungry and the thought that the sale of these rings and the watch could provide them with all they wanted to eat, and that fear kept them from satisfying this imperative need, drove them to distraction. They dragged themselves wearily through the streets, returning from time to time to inquire whether the cripple had yet arrived.
Toward evening they caught sight of him. The soldier walked over to him, saluted, and the three passed to the back of the tavern to talk things over in a corner.
“I’m expecting my secretary any moment,” said Marcos, “and he’ll arrange matters. In the meantime, order supper yourselves.”
“You do the ordering,” said the soldier to Manuel.