“Want more?” asked the gypsy.
“Sure, sure,” he drooled.
Then he began to babble, showing the stumps of his
yellow teeth, but nobody could understand a word;
he drained the other glasses, rested his forehead
against his hand and slowly made his way to a corner,
into which he squatted, and then stretched himself
out on the floor.
“Do you want me to tell your fortune, princess?”
asked the gipsy of Fanny, seizing her hand.
“No,” replied the lady drily.
“Won’t you give me a few coins for the
churumbeles?”
“No.”
“Wicked woman! Why won’t you give
me a few coins for the churumbeles?”
“What does churumbeles mean?” asked
the lady.
“Her children,” answered Leandro, laughing.
“Have you children?” Fanny asked the gipsy.
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Two. Here they are.”
And the gipsy fetched a blond little fellow and a
girl of about five or six.
The lady petted the little boy; then she took a duro
from her purse and gave it to the gipsy.
The gipsy, parting her lips in amazement and bursting
forth into profuse flattery, exhibited the duro to
everybody in the place.
“We’d better be going,” advised
Leandro. “To pull one of those big coins
out in a dive like this is dangerous.”
The four left the tavern.
“Would you like to make the rounds of this quarter?”
asked Leandro.
“Yes. Let’s,” said the lady.
Together they wound in and out of the narrow lanes
of Las Injurias.
“Watch out, the drain runs in the middle of
the street,” cautioned Manuel.
The rain kept falling; the quartet of slummers entered
narrow patios where their feet sank into the pestiferous
slime. Along the entire extension of the ravine
black with mud, shone but a single oil lamp, attached
to the side of some half crumbled wall.
“Shall we go back?” asked Roberto.
“Yes,” answered the lady.
They set out for Embajadores lane and walked up the
Paseo de las Acacias. The rain came down harder;
here and there a faint light shone in the distance;
against the intense darkness of the sky loomed the
vague silhouette of a high chimney....
Leandro and Manuel accompanied Fanny and Roberto as
far as the Plaza del Rastro, and there they parted,
exchanging handshakes.
“What a woman!” exclaimed Leandro.
“Nice, eh?” asked Manuel.
“You bet. I’d give anything to have
a try at her.”
Roberto In Quest of a Woman—El
Tabuenca and his Inventions—Don
Alonso or the Snake-Man.
A few months later Roberto appeared in the Corrala
at the hour when Manuel and the shoe-shop employes
were returning from their day’s work.
“Do you know Senor Zurro?” Roberto asked
Manuel.
