and an
aquiline nose, who took great pleasure in poking fun at the barbarous,
unshakable faith of the illiterate peasants.

Brull knew the barber very well. The man was one of his childhood
favorites. Fear of his mother was the only thing that had kept him from
frequenting Cupido's shop--the rendezvous of the city's gayest set, a
hotbed of gossip and practical jokes, a school of guitar playing and
love songs that kept the whole neighborhood astir. Besides, Cupido was
the freak of the city, the sharp-tongued but irresponsible practical
joker, who was forgiven everything in advance, and could enjoy his
idiosyncrasies and speak his mind about people without starting a riot
against him. He was, for instance, the one person in Alcira who scoffed
at the tyranny of the Brulls without thereby losing entrance to the
Party Club, where the young men admired his wit and his eccentric way of
dressing.

Rafael was still fond of Cupido, though not very intimate with him. In
all the sedate, conservative world around him, the barber seemed the
only person really worth while talking with. Cupido was almost an
artist. In winter he would go to Valencia to hear the operas praised by
the newspapers, and in one corner of his shop he had heaps of novels and
illustrated magazines, much mildewed and softened by the damp, and their
leaves worn through from continual thumbing by customers.

He had very little to do with Rafael, guessing that the youth's mother
would not regard such a friendship with any too much favor; but he
displayed a certain liking for the boy; and addressed him familiarly,
having known him as a child. Of Rafael he said everywhere:

"He's the best one in the family; the only Brull with more brains than
crookedness."

Nothing too small for Cupido to notice ever happened in Alcira. Every
weakness, every foible of the city's celebrities was made public by him
in his barbershop, to the delight of the Opposition, whose members
gathered there to read their party organ. The gentlemen of the
_Ayuntamiento_ feared the barber more than any ten newspapers combined,
and whenever some famous Conservative minister referred in parliament to
a "revolutionary hydra" or a "hotbed of anarchy," they pictured to
themselves a barbershop like that of Cupido, but much larger perhaps,
scattering a poisonous atmosphere of cruel gibe and perverse effrontery
all through the nation.

The barber was inevitably on hand where anything was going on. I