the Court on great festivals. In the good old times of the Cathedral
they would have shaved your head for you. But in these days of
alienation, of universal licence and misfortunes, our holy church is
as poor as a rat, and poverty does not give the señores canons much
inclination to examine details. It is a grievous pity to see how
everything is going down. What desolation, Gabriel! If you could only
see it! The Cathedral is as beautiful as ever, but we do not now see
the former beauty of the Lord's worship. The Chapel-master says the
same thing, and he is indignant to see that on great festivals only
about half-a-dozen musicians take their place in the middle of the
choir. The young people who live in the Claverias have not our great
love for the mother-church; they complain of the shortness of their
salaries without considering that it is the temporalities that support
religion. If this goes on I should not be surprised to see this
popinjay and other rascals like him playing at 'Rayuelo'[1] in the
crossways in front of the choir. May God forgive me!"

[Footnote 1: A game of drawing lines.]

And the simple "Wooden Staff" made a gesture as though scandalised at
his own words. He went on:

"This young fellow you see here is not satisfied with his position in
life, and yet, though he is only a youth, he occupies the place his
poor father could only attain to after thirty years' service. He
aspires to be a toreador, and often on a Sunday he dares to take part
in the bull-fight in the bull-ring of Toledo. His mother came down,
dishevelled like a Magdalen, to tell me all about it, and I, thinking
that as his father was dead I ought to act in his place, I watched for
our gentleman as he returned tricked out smartly from the bull-ring,