“No, he doesn’t know me. Just tell him that it’s a family matter. Sit down, my boy,” added Peñalar, turning to Manuel, with a voice and a smile of purely evangelical unction.
Manuel took a seat, and Peñalar let his gaze wander about the shop with the calmness and ease of one who is fully confident and aware of just what he is about.
The old man in the woolen cap soon reappeared.
“Step into the office,” and he pushed back a black screen set with striped panes. “The master will be in presently.”
Peñalar and Manuel entered a room lighted by a grated window, and sat down upon a green sofa. Opposite them rose a mahogany closet lined with business books; in the middle stood a writing desk with many drawers, and to one side of this, a safe with gilt knobs.
The room exhaled the spirit of an implacable merchant. One readily saw that this cage held an ugly bird. Manuel was terrified. Peñalar himself, perhaps, experienced a moment of weakness, but he swelled up with importance, twirled his moustaches, carefully adjusted his spectacles upon his nose and smiled.
Don Sergio did not keep them waiting long. He was a tall old fellow, with white moustaches, and a suspicious glance which he shot obliquely over the rim of his glasses. He wore a long frock coat, bright-coloured trousers, a skull cap of green velvet with a long tassel that hung down one side. He strode in without a greeting, and eyed the man and the boy with evident displeasure. They arose. Perhaps he even thought that he had divined the reason of the Visit, for in a dry, authoritarian voice, and without bidding them be seated, he asked Peñalar:
“What do you wish, sir? Was it you who had something to say to me with reference to a family matter? You?”
Any other person would have been seized with a desire to strangle the old man. Not Peñalar, however; difficult situations were his forte, and most to his taste. He began to speak, unabashed by the inquisitorial glances of the merchant.
Manuel listened to him with a mingling of admiration and terror. He could see that the old man was growing angrier every second. Peñalar spoke on unperturbed.