like a high altar, with the arms
of the Dukes of Castro. We chatted, I was very pleasant to the mother,
courteous to the daughters, and coldly indifferent with the little
niece. I was bored, after having exhausted all subjects of conversation,
when Don Calixto reappeared and carried me off to his office.

"The conference was important; he explained the situation of the
Conservative forces of the district to me. These forces are represented,
principally, by three men: Don Calixto, a Senor Don Platon, and a friar.
Don Calixto represents the modern Conservative tendency and is, let us
say, the Canovas of the district; with him are the rich members of the
Casino, the superior judge, the doctors, the great proprietors, etc.
Don Platon Peribanez, a silversmith in the Calle Mayor, represents the
middle-class Conservatives; his people are less showy, but more in
earnest and better disciplined; this Platonian or Platonic party is made
up of chandlers, silversmiths, small merchants, and the poor priests.
The friar, who represents the third Conservative nucleus, is Father
Martin Lafuerza. Father Martin is prior of the Franciscan monastery,
which was established here after the Order was expelled from Filinas.

"Father Martin is an Ultramontanist up to the eyes. He directs priests,
friars, nuns, sisters, and is the absolute master of a town nearby
called Cidones, where the women are very pious.

"Despite their piety, the reputation of those ladies cannot be very
good, because there is a proverb, certainly not very gallant: 'Don't get
either a wife or a mule at Cidones; neither a wife nor a mule nor a pig
at Grinon.'

"Opposed to these three Conservative nuclei are the friends of the
present Deputy, who amount to no more than the official element, which
is always on the ruling side, and a small guerilla band that meets in
the Workingmen's Casino, and is composed principally of a Republican
bookseller, an apothecary who invents explosives, also Republican, an
anarchist doctor, a free-thinking weaver, and an innkeeper whom they
call Furibis, who is also a smuggler and a man with hair on his chest."

_DON PLATON PERIBANEZ_

"After having given me these data, Don Calixto told me that by counting
on Senor Peribanez, the election was almost sure; and since the quicker
things go the better, he proposed that we should go to see him, and I
immediately agreed.

"Don Platon Peribanez has a silver-shop fitted up in the old style; a