o is the most
powerful boss in the province of Tarragona, and even at that there are
those who dispute his bossdom.'

"Don Calixto is astonished that when he has done the Castrians the
honour to make them loans at eighty or ninety percent, they are not fond
of him. After the garden we saw the house; I won't tell you anything
about it, I don't want you to accuse me again of being a Ruskinian.

"When we reached the dining-room Don Calixto said: 'I am going to
present you to my family.'

"Thereupon, entrance, ceremonies, bows on my part, smiles... _toute
la lyre_. Don Calixto's wife is an insignificant fat woman; the two
daughters insipid, ungainly, not at all pretty; and with them was a
little girl of about fifteen or sixteen, a niece of Don Calixto's, a
veritable little devil, named Amparo. This Amparo is a tiny, flat-faced
creature, with black eyes, and extraordinarily vivacious and
mischievous. During dinner I succeeded in irritating the child.

"I talked gravely with Don Calixto and his wife and daughters about
Madrid, about the theatrical companies that come to this town, about
their acquaintances at the Capital.

"The child interrupted us, bringing us the cat and putting a little bow
on him, and then making him walk on the key-board of the piano.

"At half-past one we went to the dining-room. Dinner was kilometres
long; and the conversation turned on Rome and Paris. Don Calixto drank
more and more, I, too; and at the end of the meal there was a bit of
toasting, from which my political intentions were made manifest.

"The elder daughter, whose name is Adela, asked me if I liked music. I
told her yes, almost closing my eyes, as if deliriously, and we went
into the drawing-room. Without paying attention, I listened, during
the horrors of digestion, to a number of sonatas, now and then saying:
'Magnificent! How wonderful that is!'

"The father was enchanted, the mother enchanted, the sister likewise;
the little girl was the one who stared at me with questioning black
eyes. She must have been thinking: 'What species of bird is this?' I
believe the damned child realized that I was acting a comedy.

"About four the ladies and I went out into the garden. Don Calixto has
the habit of taking an afternoon nap, and he left us. I succeeded in
bringing myself to, in the open air. Don Calixto's wife showed me over
an abandoned part of the house, in which there is an old kitchen as big
as a cathedral, with a stone chimney