r
where you live so happily, and so, I came to seek you. If you turn me
out, nothing will be left me but to die in prison, or in a hospital,
if indeed they would take me in when they know my name."

And Gabriel, spent with his words, coughed painfully, a hollow
cavernous cough that seemed to tear his chest. He expressed himself
vehemently, moving his arms freely, with the gestures of a man used to
speaking in public, burning with the zeal of his cause.

"Ah! brother, brother!" said Esteban, with an accent of mild reproof,
"what has it profited you reading so many books and newspapers? What
is the use of trying to disturb and upset things that are all right;
and if they are all wrong, is there no other means of righting them
possible? If you had followed your own path quietly, you would have
been a beneficiary of the Cathedral, and, who knows, you might have
had a seat in the choir among the canons, for the honour and profit of
the family! But you were always wrong-headed, although you were the
cleverest of us all. Cursed talent that leads to such misery! What
I have suffered, brother, trying to hear about your affairs! What
bitterness have I not gone through since you last came here! I thought
you were contented and happy in the printing office in Barcelona,
receiving a salary that was a fortune compared to what we earn here.
I was disturbed at reading your name so often in the papers, at those
meetings, where the division of everything is advocated, the death of
religion and of the family, and I do not know what follies besides.
The 'companion' Luna said this, or the 'companion' Luna has done the
other, and I tried to hide from the people of the 'household' that
this 'companion' could be you, guessing that such madness must turn
out ill--furiously ill--and after--after came the affairs of the
bombs."

"I had nothing to do with that," said Gabriel sadly. "I am only a
theorist; I condemned the action as premature and inefficacious."

"I know it, Gabriel. I always thought you innocent. You so good, so
gentle, who since you were a little one always astonished us by your
kindness; you who seemed like a saint, as our poor mother used to say!
You kill, and so treacherously, by means of such infernal artifices!
Holy Jesus!"

And the "Wooden Staff" was silent, overcome by the recollection of
those attempts that had overwhelmed his brother.

"But what is certain is," he continued after a little, "that you fell
into the t