_patio_ of the plantain trees; and people too shy to lay their
supplications before the god himself, would seek out that jolly
advocate,--a very approachable bachelor, who always had a smile on his
tanned, wrinkled face, and a story under his stiff cigar-stained
mustache.

Don Andrés had no relatives, and spent almost all his time at the
Brull's. He was like a piece of furniture that seems always to be
getting in the way at first; but when all were once accustomed to him,
he became an indispensable fixture in the family. In the days when don
Ramón had been a young subordinate of the _Ayuntamiento_, he had met and
liked the man, and taking him into the ranks of his "heelers," had
promoted him rapidly to be chief of staff. In the opinion of the "boss,"
there wasn't a cleverer, shrewder fellow in the world than don Andrés,
nor one with a better memory for names and faces. Brull was the
strategist who directed the campaign; don Andrés the tactician who
commanded actual operations and cleaned up behind the lines when the
enemy was divided and undone. Don Ramón was given to settling everything
in a violent manner, and drew his gun at the slightest provocation. If
his methods had been followed, "the Party" would have murdered someone
every day. Don Andrés had a smooth tongue and a seraphic smile that
simply wound _alcaldes_ or rebellious electors around his little
finger, and his specialty was the art of letting loose a rain of sealed
documents over the District that started complicated and never-ending
prosecutions against troublesome opponents.

He attended to "the chief's" correspondence, and was tutor and playmate
to the little Rafael, taking the boy on long walks through the orchard
country. To doña Bernarda he was confidential adviser.