n that it was Valdepenas. Whether oaths and
invectives have any decisive influence upon events or not, we are unable
to state; but the general used them with as much faith as though they
had been a powerful antidote.

The victim was leaning his poor little head against the partition,
shedding a copious flood of tears.

"What have you brought?" roared the count, casting a wrathful look upon
Marroquin.

"This letter," replied the poor man, offering it with trembling hand.

"Vomit!" roared the general, with flaming eyes.

"What?" asked the professor, timidly.

"Vomit, child, vomit! or I will shake you out of your skin!" bellowed
the illustrious chief of Torrelodones, seizing his son by the neck....
"And what does the letter say?"

"It is from Senor Rivera, asking a position on _La Independencia_ for
one who admires you."

"Can't you? Then put your fingers in your mouth!.... Senor Rivera knows
perfectly well that there is no position vacant; everything is full, and
I am tormented to death with applications.... Let me see you stuff your
fingers in, you little rascal, or I will do it myself!"

Marroquin acted prudently, by quietly opening the door and slipping out.
Afterward Miguel spoke to the general at a more propitious moment and
succeeded in getting Marroquin a place on the staff at a monthly salary
of five hundred reales.[11]

Among the other editors of _La Independencia_ was an apostate and
liberal priest who had let his beard grow long, and used to tell his
friends secrets of the confessional when he had been drinking. He was
one of Marroquin's intimates: both had the same grudge against the
Divinity, and both were working enthusiastically to free humanity from
its yoke. Nevertheless, one day he actually became ready to quarrel with
the hirsute professor for turning the Eucharist into ridicule, which
confirmed the former in his idea that "the priest was changing his
views."

His name was Don Cayetano.

One other of the editors was a light-haired, handsome, and bashful young
man, whose seat was in one of the corners of the room, and he lifted his
head only when he overheard some brilliant sentence, for such things
aroused his frantic admiration. His articles were always a mosaic of
sonorous, titillating euphemisms, and adjectives, which formed a large
proportion of Gomez de la Floresta's repertory: he played with them like
a juggler; if any one desired to make him happy, he could find no easier
way than