o women, he was not worried about what would happen
when the wind-fall his brother had brought him should be exhausted. For
that matter, his companions in roistering sometimes paid, and he had an
occasional run of luck at cards. He would come home late at night to go
to bed, scowling and cursing between his teeth. But woe to Rosario if
she ventured any protest. For periods of two or three days, at times, he
would not be seen there at all. Not so, however, in his brother's house.
There he went frequently, loafing about the kitchen with Dolores, if the
Rector was not at home, listening with bowed head and resigned humility,
to the lectures she gave him on his scandalous conduct. When Pascualo
happened in on one of these dressing-downs, he always seconded loyally
the sound preaching of his wife. Yes, sir, Dolores was cross like that,
because she was really fond of him! As a respectable woman, she couldn't
afford to have a brother-in-law tearing around all the time and being
the talk of the town. And the fat good-natured sailor's eyes would fill
with tears, _ira de dios_, at what his Dolores was saying, a real woman,
by God, as kind as a mother to that fool of a boy!

As his funds got lower, Tonet's attendance on his brother's household
was still more assiduous. He was turning the motherly advice he got
there to good account. And to avoid any chance of gossip, he showed
himself day after day with the Rector up at the boat-yard, watching the
progress of the big frame which was now receiving its planking and was
gradually taking shape under the persistent efforts of hammer, ax and
saw.

And summer was coming on. The stretch of seashore between the Gas House
drain and the harbor, so solitary and deserted at other seasons of the
year, was busily returning to life. The heat was beginning to drive the
whole city to the water's side, where a veritable town of movable
houses, like the temporary encampment of an army, was growing up. In a
measured line along the sands ran the shacks of the vacationers, cheap
structures with walls of painted canvas and roofs of cane, front doors
labeled with fantastic names, and, to distinguish one camp from so many
others like it, flag-staffs on the gables with banners of all colors,
and above the flags, queer weathervanes--boats, dragons, dolls, gew-gaws
of every shape and form. In a second line, farther from the shore, and
speculating on the appetite that salt air awakens in dyspeptics, came
the