Before the words were out of her mouth, the nabob was at his wife's side: "Go," said he, "gather all your needles and thread, and throw them into the well, and bear in mind that the day I find you sewing, I will sue for a divorce. The sight of the halter on another's neck is warning enough for me."
Aunt S. And now, Señor Don Fernan, my story is ended; I hope that it has pleased you?
Don F. Ever so much, Aunt Sebastiana; but what I learn from it is, that the souls, notwithstanding that they are blessed, are very tricky.
Aunt S. Now, señor, and is your worship going to insist upon doctrine in a romance, as if it were an example? Why, stories are only to make us laugh, and grow better without precept or name of lesson. God will have a little of all.
Don F. True, Aunt Sebastiana; and what you express with your simple good sense is more wholesome than the critical reverence of the overstrict. But, uncle, I am not going without another to correspond with this, and it is your turn now. If, as I think you have told me that you were on other occasions, you are a devotee of San Tomas,[86] here are some Havanas as an offering to his saintship.
Uncle R. Not to disoblige your worship.
Don F. But I must have the story; I want it for a purpose.
Uncle R. By which your worship means to say that, without an ochavo, you can't make up the real.[87] Well, let me think. Since the talk is about animas, animas it is. Their sodality in a certain place had for mayordomo a poor bread-lost[88] of a member, one of those who are always like the sheep that misses the mouthful.[89] He was without a cloak, and went with teeth chattering and limbs benumbed with cold. What does he do but go and order himself a cloak made, and, without so much as saying chuz or muz,[90] or by your leave, sirs, take money from the funds of the animas to pay for it. When it came home, he put it on, and went into the street as consequential and high-stomached as those rich folks recently raised from the dust. But at every step he took, some one gave the cloak a jerk, and though he kept a sharp lookout he could not see who. The instant he drew it up on the left shoulder, down it slid from the right, causing him to keep a continual hitch, hitch. You would have thought he had a thorn in his foot.
As he went along, pestered and chap-fallen, trying to make out what it could mean, he met a gossip of his, who was mayordomo to the Hermandad del Santísimo.[91] This fellow was stalking loftily, filling the street with his air that said, Get out of the way, I am coming. After "How d'ye do?" this one asked the other, "What is the matter, comrade, that you seem so down at the mouth lately?"
"Matter enough!" answered he of the souls, pulling his cloak up on the right shoulder while it slipped off from the left. "Know that in the beginning of the winter I found myself in difficulties. I had sown a pegujar[92] without seeing the color of wheat. My wife brought me two boys, when, with the nine I had already, one would have been too many; the delivery cost her a long sickness, and me the eyes of my face. In few, I was just stuck to the wall like a star-lizard, and hungrier than an ex-minister. I had to borrow money of the souls to get this cloak; but what the seven ails it I don't know, for, whenever I put it on, it seems as though somebody was giving it a pull here and a jerk there. Two rudder-pins couldn't hold it fast to my shoulders."