ther acacia blossom
in the corner of her mouth, and she walked along, swaying her hips, like
a filly from the Cordova stud farm. In my country anybody who had seen
a woman dressed in that fashion would have crossed himself. At Seville
every man paid her some bold compliment on her appearance. She had
an answer for each and all, with her hand on her hip, as bold as the
thorough gipsy she was. At first I didn't like her looks, and I fell to
my work again. But she, like all women and cats, who won't come if you
call them, and do come if you don't call them, stopped short in front of
me, and spoke to me.

"'_Compadre_,' said she, in the Andalusian fashion, 'won't you give me
your chain for the keys of my strong box?'

"'It's for my priming-pin,' said I.

"'Your priming-pin!' she cried, with a laugh. 'Oho! I suppose the
gentleman makes lace, as he wants pins!'

"Everybody began to laugh, and I felt myself getting red in the face,
and couldn't hit on anything in answer.

"'Come, my love!' she began again, 'make me seven ells of lace for my
mantilla, my pet pin-maker!'

"And taking the acacia blossom out of her mouth she flipped it at me
with her thumb so that it hit me just between the eyes. I tell you, sir,
I felt as if a bullet had struck me. I didn't know which way to look.
I sat stock-still, like a wooden board. When she had gone into the
factory, I saw the acacia blossom, which had fallen on the ground
between my feet. I don't know what made me do it, but I picked it up,
unseen by any of my comrades, and put it carefully inside my jacket.
That was my first folly.

"Two or three hours later I was still thinking about her, when a
panting, terrified-looking porter rushed into the guard-room. He told
us a woman had been stabbed in the great cigar-room, and that the guard
must be sent in at once. The sergeant told me to take two men, and go
and see to it. I took my two men and went upstairs. Imagine, sir, that
when I got into the room, I found, to begin with, some three hundred
women, stripped to their shifts, or very near it, all of them screaming
and yelling and gesticulating, and making such a row that you couldn't
have heard God's own thunder. On one side of the room one of the women
was lying on the broad of her back, streaming with blood, with an X
newly cut on her face by two strokes of a knife. Opposite the wounded
woman, whom the best-natured of the band were attending, I saw Carmen,
held by five or six of h