"I want to be a captain."

The poet approved. He felt the unreflective enthusiasm which all
pacific and sedentary beings have for the plume and the sword. At the
mere sight of a uniform his soul always thrilled with the amorous
tenderness of a child's nurse when she finds herself courted by a
soldier.

"Fine!" said Labarta. "Captain of what?... Of artillery?... Of the
staff?..."

A pause.

"No; captain of a ship."

Don Esteban looked up at the roof, raising his hands in horror. He well
knew who was guilty of this ridiculous idea, the one who had put such
absurd longings in his son's head!

And he was thinking of his brother, the retired doctor, who was living
in the paternal home over there in the _Marina:_--an excellent man, but
a little crazy, whom the people on the coast called the _Dotor_, and
the poet Labarta had nicknamed the _Triton_.

CHAPTER II

MATER AMPHITRITE

When the _Triton_ occasionally appeared in Valencia, thrifty Dona
Cristina was obliged to modify the dietary of her family. This man ate
nothing but fish, and her soul of an economical housewife worried
greatly at the thought of the extraordinarily high price that fish
brings in a port of exportation.

Life in that house, where everything always jogged along so uniformly,
was greatly upset by the presence of the doctor. A little after
daybreak, just when its inhabitants were usually enjoying the dessert
of their night's sleep, hearing drowsily the rumble of the early
morning carts and the bell-ringing of the first Masses, the house would
reecho to the rude banging of doors and heavy footsteps making the
stairway creak. It was the _Triton_ rushing out on the street,
incapable of remaining between four walls after the first streak of
light. Following the currents of the early morning life, he would reach
the market, stopping before the flower stands where were the most
numerous gatherings of women.

The eyes of the women turned toward him instinctively with an
expression of interest and fear. Some blushed as he passed by,
imagining against their will what an embrace from this hideous and
restless Colossus must be.

"He is capable of crushing a flea on his arm," the sailors of his
village used to boast when trying to emphasize the hardness of his
biceps. His body lacked fat, and under his swarthy skin bulged great,
rigid and protruding muscles--an Herculean texture from which had been
eliminated every element incapable of producing