would not know me, and I should not like to be
considered ugly; neither is it right to mar and destroy what God made
in His likeness."

"Agreed," replied Balbeja; "I will aim lower."

"Except--except my stomach also, for I was ever a friend to
cleanliness, and I should not like to see myself fouled in a bad way,
if your knife and arm played havoc with my liver and intestines."

"I will strike higher; but let us go on."

"Take care of my chest, it was always weak."

"Then just tell me, friend, _where_ am I to sound or tap you?"

"My dear Balbeja, there's always plenty of time and space to hack at a
man; I have here on my left arm a wen, of which you can make meat as
much as you like."

"Here goes for it," said Balbeja, and he hurled himself like an arrow;
the other warded off the thrust with his cloak, and both, like skilful
penmen, began again tracing S's and signatures in the air with dashes
and flourishes without, however, raising a particle of skin.

I do not know what would have been the end of this onslaught, since my
venerable, dry, and shriveled person was not suitable for forming a
point of exclamation between two combatants; and the tavern-keeper
troubled so little about what was happening that he drowned the
stamping of their feet and clatter of the tumbling stools and utensils
by scraping street music on a guitar as loud as he could. Otherwise he
was as calm as if he were entertaining two angels instead of two
devils incarnate.

I do not know, I repeat, how this scene would have ended, when there
crossed the threshold a parsonage who came to take a part in the
development of the drama. There entered, I say, a woman of twenty to
twenty-two years of age, diminutive in body, superlative in audacity
and grace. Neat and clean hose and shoes, short, black flounced
petticoat, a linked girdle, head-dress or mantilla of fringed taffeta
caught together at the nape of her neck, and a corner of it over her
shoulder, she passed before my eyes with swaying hips, arms akimbo,
and moving her head to and fro as she looked about her on all sides.

Upon seeing her the tavern-keeper dropped his instrument, and I was
overtaken by perturbation such as I had not experienced for thirty
years (I am, after all, only flesh and blood); but, without halting
for such lay-figures, she advanced to the field of battle.

There was a lively to-do here; Don Pulpete and Don Balbeja when they
saw Dona Gorja appear, first cause of th