Manuel recounted his adventures, drawing a little upon his imagination, and entertained the baroness for a while.
“Fine. Don’t say a word to anybody, understand?... And now go and wash yourself.”
CHAPTER IV
The Baroness de Aynant, Her Dogs and Her Mulattress Companion—Wherein is Prepared a Farce
Little work, little to eat and clean clothes: these were the conditions that Manuel found in the home of the baroness, and they were unsurpassable.
In the morning his duty was to take the baroness’s dogs out for a stroll; in the afternoon he had to run a few errands. At times, during the first days, he felt homesick for his wandering existence. Several issues of huge novels published in serial form, which Chucha lent him, allayed his passion for tramping about the streets and transported him, in company of Fernández y González and Tárrago y Mateos, to the life of the XVIIth century, with its braggart knights and its lovelorn ladies.
Niña Chucha, an eternal chatterbox, recounted to Manuel, in several instalments, the tale of her dear friend, as she called the baroness.