"I should think you did know him!" cried Pescadero. "It is Pipi."
The nickname made Gallardo remember his history at once. A plucky youngster who stuck in his banderillas in most masterly fashion, he also had been named by the aficionados as "the torero of the future." Unluckily one day in the Plaza in Madrid his right arm had been so badly gored as to make amputation necessary, and he had been rendered useless for further bull-fighting.
"I took him in, Juan," continued El Pescadero. "I have no family and my wife died, so I look upon him as a son. Do not think that Pipi and I live in plenty. We live as we can, but whatever I have is for him. We get on, thanks to old friends who come sometimes to breakfast or to play a game of cards, and above all thanks to the school."
Gallardo smiled. He had heard something about the school of Tauromachia established by El Pescadero close to his tavern.
"What can I do now?" said the latter, excusing himself. "One must help oneself on, and the school consumes more than all the customers in the tavern. A great many people come, young gentlemen who wish to distinguish themselves at the 'becerras,'[107] foreigners who become bewitched by the corridas, and who wish to become toreros in their old age. I have got one now who comes every afternoon. You shall see him."
They crossed the street towards a plot of ground surrounded by a wall. Across the joined planks which served as a door was a large placard on which was written in tar "School of Tauromachia."
They went in. The first thing that attracted Gallardo's attention was the bull—an animal made of wood and bamboos, mounted on wheels, with a tail of tow, a head of plaited straw, and pieces of cork for a neck, to which were attached a pair of real and enormous horns which struck terror into the pupils' hearts.
A bare-breasted lad, in a cap with two curls of hair above his ears, was the creature who communicated its intelligence to the beast, pushing it forward when the pupils stood opposite to it with their capes in their hands.
In the middle of the plot stood a gentleman, elderly, round shouldered, and stout, red faced, with large stiff grey moustache, in his shirt sleeves, with a banderilla in either hand. Close to the wall seated on a chair, and leaning on another, was a lady of about the same age, and not less stout and rubicund, in a hat covered with flowers. Each time her husband executed some good stroke the piles of flowers and false curls shook and waved wildly as she threw herself back in her chair laughing and applauding loudly.
El Pescadero explained to Gallardo that most probably those people were French or possibly from some other country, he was not certain, and it mattered nothing to him. The couple seemed to have travelled all over the world and to have lived everywhere; to judge from his stories, he had been a miner in America, colonist in some distant island, hunter of wild horses with a lasso in America, and now he wished to earn some money as torero, and came every afternoon to the school like an obstinate child, but he paid generously for his lessons.