11. Estoy sirviendo aquí hace tres meses, I have been employed here for three months; an action begun in past time and continued in the present is expressed in English by the present tense, and the time-idea by "for." In Spanish the present tense is required and the time-idea is expressed by hace or desde hace. Similarly, estaba sirviendo aquí hacía tres meses would mean "I had been employed here for three months." But if the main verb is in the preterite, hace followed by a time-clause is equivalent to "ago"; thus, ESTUVE sirviendo aquí hace tres meses, "I was employed here three months ago." For further examples of these two constructions, see voc. under hacer.
12. Ya supe, I found out; the preterite of saber may express the idea of "learning," "finding out." The imperfect sabía usually means "I knew."
17. Hombre, why, what are you saying?; hombre as an interjection expresses surprise or remonstrance. It is addressed without connotation of sex to a woman as well as to a man, e.g., hombre, ¿estás loca? "why, are you crazy, (woman)?"
18. De que, that; Spanish verbs usually retain before substantive clauses the prepositions which are associated with them before ordinary substantives. Here de is retained as a reminiscence of its presence in such an expression as alegrarse de una cosa, "to be glad of a thing."
26. confío en que; for en, see previous note.
[4.]—7. sigo la máxima del pobre porfiado... Erre que erre, I follow the maxim of the insistent beggar... keep at it. The maxim referred to is pobre porfiado saca mendrugo, "the insistent beggar gets his crust of bread," i.e., "he who persists, wins his point."
9. Lo que es á paciencia... le gane á usted, in the matter of being patient, there is no one who can get ahead of you.
11. ¿Verdad que no? isn't that true? A conjunctive clause may be inferred after que. Atilano might say in full, continuing the idea of the previous statement, ¿Verdad que no hay quien me gane?
16. me he venido; a few intransitive verbs undergo a change of meaning on being made reflexive. There may be a decided change of meaning; e.g., ir, "to go," irse, "to go away"; dormir, "to sleep," dormirse, "to go to sleep"; marchar, "to march," marcharse, "to go away." In a few verbs the change of meaning is imperceptible; e.g., venirse (see above), which is practically equivalent to venir, "to come."
18. ¿Me das...? will you give me...? In familiar speech, the present is substituted for the future, to express vividly a future action and to emphasize the certainty of its occurrence.—cerillita (dim. of cerilla); the diminutive conveys to the Spaniard many fine distinctions not easy for the foreigner to seize. Besides their obvious diminutive sense, these diminutive endings may imply sympathy, familiar or intimate relations, comradeship, affection, pity, playful irony, entreaty, as well as depreciation or contemptuous pity. At times they merely create a mood or atmosphere. Thus mothers will address their children, and lovers each other, with an abundance of diminutives as a means of displaying tenderness, without causing any alteration of meaning in the word itself. Specific instances of the diminutive will be discussed later in their relation to the context. cerillita here would help to show that don Atilano desires to be friendly and informal with Francisco, though it would not be impossible, were it intelligible in the context, for it to mean a "small match."