But the youth of Orbajosa did not spend all their time in the Casino, as evil-minded people might imagine.  In the afternoons there were to be seen at the corner of the cathedral, and in the little plaza formed by the intersection of the Calle del Condestable and the Calle de la Triperia, several gentlemen who, gracefully enveloped in their cloaks, stood there like sentinels, watching the people as they passed by.  If the weather was fine, those shining lights of the Urbs Augustan culture bent their steps, still enveloped in the indispensable cloak, toward the promenade called the Paseo de las Descalzas, which was formed by a double row of consumptive-looking elms and some withered bushes of broom.  There the brilliant Pleiad watched the daughters of this fellow-townsman or that, who had also come there for a walk, and the afternoon passed tolerably.  In the evening, the Casino filled up again; and while some of the members gave their lofty minds to the delights of monte, others read the newspapers, while the majority discussed in the coffee-room subjects of the various kinds, such as the politics, horses, bulls, or the gossip of the place.  The result of every discussion was the renewed conviction of the supremacy of Orbajosa and its inhabitants over all the other towns and peoples on the face of the earth.

These distinguished men were the cream of the illustrious city; some rich landowners, others very poor, but all alike free from lofty aspirations.  They had the imperturbable tranquillity of the beggar who desires nothing more so long as he has a crust of bread with which to cheat hunger, and the sun to warm him.  What chiefly distinguished the Orbajosans of the Casino was a sentiment of bitter hostility toward all strangers, and whenever any stranger of note appeared in its august halls, they believed that he had come there to call in question the superiority of the land of the garlic, or to dispute with it, through envy, the incontestable advantages which nature had bestowed upon it.

When Pepe Rey presented himself in the Casino, they received him with something of suspicion, and as facetious persons abounded in it, before the new member had been there a quarter of an hour, all sorts of jokes had been made about him.  When in answer to the reiterated questions of the members he said that he had come to Orbajosa with a commission to explore the basin of the Nahara for coal, and to survey a road, they all agreed that Senor Don Jose was a conceited fellow who wished to give himself airs, discovering coalbeds and planning railroads.  Some one added: 

“He has come to a bad place for that, then.  Those gentlemen imagine that here we are all fools, and that they can deceive us with fine words.  He has come to marry Dona Perfecta’s daughter, and all that he says about coalbeds is only for the sake of appearances.”

“Well, this morning,” said another, a merchant who had failed, “they told me at the Dominguez’ that the gentleman has not a peseta, and that he has come here in order to be supported by his aunt and to see if he can catch Rosarito.”