uld have nothing to eat; they say you
stole two onces, and two onces make thirty-two pesos."

The little fellow counted thirty-two on his fingers.

"Six hands and two fingers. And each finger makes a peso, and each
peso how many cuartos?"

"A hundred sixty."

"And how much is a hundred sixty?"

"Thirty-two hands."

Crispin regarded his little paws.

"Thirty-two hands," he said, "and each finger a cuarto! O mama! how
many cuartos! and with them one could buy shoes, and a hat for the sun,
and an umbrella for the rain, and clothes for mama."

Crispin became pensive.

"What I'm afraid of is that mama will be angry with you when she
hears about it."

"You think so?" said Crispin, surprised. "But I've never had a cuarto
except the one they gave me at Easter. Mama won't believe I stole;
she won't believe it!"

"But if the curate says so----"

Crispin began to cry, and said through his sobs:

"Then go alone, I won't go. Tell mama I'm sick."

"Crispin, don't cry," said his brother. "If mama seems to believe what
they say, you'll tell her that the sacristan lies, that the curate
believes him, that they say we are thieves because our father----"

A head came out of the shadows in the little stairway, and as if it
had been Medusa's, it froze the words on the children's lips.

The head was long and lean, with a shock of black hair. Blue glasses
concealed one sightless eye. It was the chief sacristan who had thus
stolen upon the children.

"You, Basilio, are fined two reales for not ringing regularly. And you,
Crispin, stay to-night till you find what you've stolen."

"We have permission," began Basilio; "our mother expects us at nine."

"You won't go at nine o'clock either; you shall stay till ten."

"But, senor, after nine one can't pass through the streets----"

"Are you trying to dictate to me?" demanded the sacristan, and he
seized Crispin's arm.

"Senor, we have not seen our mother for a week," entreated Basilio,
taking hold of his brother as if to protect him.

With a stroke on the cheek the sacristan made him let go, and dragged
off Crispin, who commenced to cry, let himself fall, tried to cling
to the floor, and besought Basilio to keep him. But the sacristan,
dragging the child, disappeared in the shadows.

Basilio stood mute. He heard his little brother's body strike
against the stairs; he heard a cry, blows, heart-rending words,
growing fainter and fainter, lost at last in the distance.

"