they would have left him stretched on
the ground this afternoon."

"Bah!" said the ecclesiastic, laughing. "But have you heard of that
little prank already? I wager Maria Remedios came with the story. And I
forbade her to do it--I forbade her positively. The thing in itself is
of no consequence, am I not right, Senor de Rey?"

"Since you think so----"

"That is what I think. Young people's pranks! Youth, let the moderns
say what they will, is inclined to vice and to vicious actions. Senor
de Rey, who is a person of great endowments, could not be altogether
perfect--why should it be wondered at that those pretty girls should
have captivated him, and, after getting his money out of him, should
have made him the accomplice of their shameless and criminal insults to
their neighbors? My dear friend, for the painful part that I had in this
afternoon's sport," he added, raising his hand to the wounded spot,
"I am not offended, nor will I distress you by even referring to so
disagreeable an incident. I am truly sorry to hear that Maria Remedios
came here to tell all about it. My niece is so fond of gossiping! I
wager she told too about the half ounce, and your romping with the girls
on the terrace, and your chasing one another about, and the pinches and
the capers of Don Juan Tafetan. Bah! those things ought not to be told."

Pepe Rey did not know which annoyed him most--his aunt's severity or the
hypocritical condescension of the canon.

"Why should they not be told?" said Dona Perfecta. "He does not seem
ashamed of his conduct himself. I assure you all that I keep this from
my dear daughter only because, in her nervous condition, a fit of anger
might be dangerous to her."

"Come, it is not so serious as all that, senora," said the Penitentiary.
"I think the matter should not be again referred to, and when the one
who was stoned says that, the rest may surely be satisfied. And the blow
was no joke, Senor Don Jose. I thought they had split my head open and
that my brains were oozing out."

"I am truly sorry for the occurrence!" stammered Pepe Rey. "It gives me
real pain, although I had no part in it--"

"Your visit to those Senoras Troyas will be talked about all over
the town," said the canon. "We are not in Madrid, in that centre of
corruption, of scandal--"

"There you can visit the vilest places without any one knowing it," said
Dona Perfecta.

"Here we are very observant of one another," continued Don Inocenci