though he were trying to hold back the avalanche which was about to
fall, "it is necessary that one of us two perish!"

"Merciful Virgin!" exclaimed Dona Adelaida. "Who is going to perish,
Jacobito? For Heaven's sake, don't go lose your mind! Do you want your
father to die?"

"Not him, senora, not him! I refer to my algebra professor, with whom
this afternoon or to-morrow at the very latest, I am going to fight a
duel!"

"And what has the algebra professor done to you? Made you fail in your
examination? Now if you had studied, as your father told you to do, this
would not have happened."

"Senora," cried Jacobo, in a stentorian voice so fiendish that Dona
Adelaida in affright took a step or two backward, "don't you dare to
speak about what you do not understand! I cannot get over my vexation
that I ever had anything to do with algebra. What the professor did was
to sneer at me, and this, my father's son cannot put up with! Do you
understand?"

"Come, calm yourself, Jacobito; you have been very much disturbed since
yesterday. Perhaps it is not as bad as you think. It may be that this
gentleman did not sneer at you on purpose."

"He may not have done it intentionally, but the fact is, he insulted me,
and I will not stand it; I never have yet, and I never intend to let any
one insult me with impunity. You know very well that in this respect I
am a peculiar man."

"I know it, Jacobito; you have the same disposition as your grandfather
(peace to his soul!). What a man he was! He was as quick to flare up as
gunpowder! Just think; one time when he was shaving, he heard a cry in
the court; he turned his head so suddenly that he gave himself a
tremendous cut in the nose.... But it is necessary, my son, to have
self-restraint, and repress one's nature a little, if one would live in
this world. It is my idea that if this professor made sport of you, what
you ought to do is to make sport of him!"

With slight variations, such was the advice that in the early days of
Greece, Minerva, the goddess of the glorious eyes, gave the divine
Achilles in his famous quarrel with Agamemnon, the son of Atreus.

We are obliged to confess that this hero of ours did not show himself so
amenable to the goddess's commands as "Peleus' godlike son"; instead of
immediately sheathing his sword and yielding, he refused to make use of
any other measures than those of force.

The only concession that Dona Adelaida could obtain after many praye