heir raids.
He could swim like a fish, and all through the summer days he loafed
around the liners in the harbor, without a stitch on his lean sunburned
body, diving for the silver coins the passengers threw overboard. At
night he would come home, his trousers in rags, his face scratched and
bleeding. His mother had caught him several times fondly caressing the
brandy keg; and one evening she had had to put on her shawl and go to
harbor-police headquarters, where her tears and lamentations finally
got him loose on the promise that she would cure him of his ugly
weakness for scraping the bottoms of the sugar boxes stored on the
piers.

That Tonet was a limb of the Devil! And, _dios mio_, where did he get
it, where did he get it! How could two decent honest parents, such as
she and Pascualo had been, ever get to have a boy like that? With a
perfectly good dinner waiting for him at home, why did he insist on
sneaking around the steamers from Scotland, waiting for the watchman to
turn his back so as to be off with a dried codfish under his arm? No,
that boy was to be the death of her! Twelve years old, no inclination to
work, and not the slightest fear or respect for her, in spite of all the
broomsticks she had broken over his back.

_Sina_ Tona usually confided her troubles to a certain Martinez, a young
policeman who patrolled that part of the shore, spending the noon hours
under the cafe shelter, his rifle across his knees, his eyes vaguely
fixed on the horizon of the sea, and his ears filled with the running
plaint of the tavernkeeper. A handsome chap Martinez was, an Andalusian
from Huelva, slender and trim of person, natty as could be in the old
service uniform which he sported with a truly martial swagger, twirling
the corner of his blond mustache with an air that people called
"distinguished." _Sina_ Tona admired the man. After all, breeding will
come out! You can tell it a mile away. How Martinez talked, for
instance! You could see from his choice of words that he was a man of
schooling. For that matter he had studied years and years in the
Seminary up his way; and if now he was only a patrolman, it was because
he hadn't wanted to be a priest--he had quarreled with his family on the
subject--preferring to see a bit of the world by enlisting in the army.
The mistress of the tavern listened open-mouthed to the tales he told
about himself in a heavy Andalusian dialect where every "s" was like
"th" in "thing." In def