He was fifty-four years of age and had been attached to the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs ever since he was four-and-twenty. Each successive
government had regarded him as one of the indispensable wheels in the
machinery of colonial administration. Furthermore, he was a bachelor
and living at the mercy of his landlady. It was said that in his youth
he once wrote a play which won him nothing but hisses and free entry
for life behind the scenes of the theaters. Whether resigned or not to
the verdict of the public, he ceased to write plays and assumed
instead the nobler rôle of patron to unrecognized authors and artists
and to ruined managers.

Any youth from the provinces who arrived in Madrid with a drama in his
pocket could take no surer road to seeing it produced than that which
led to the home of Don Jerónimo. One and all, he received them with
open arms, the good and the bad alike. There is no denying that,
since he was rather brusque in his ways, he never spared the young
authors who asked his advice and read him their productions, but
criticized vigorously, even to the verge of insult: "This whole
episode is sheer nonsense; spill your ink-well on it!" "Why, look
here, for the love of heaven! How do you suppose that a man who is on
the point of committing murder is going to stand there for sixteen
seconds, without drawing his breath?" "Lord, what tommyrot! Platonic
love for a woman of that class! You must have tumbled out of the nest
unfledged, my lad!"

But anyone possessed of a little tact refused to take offense, but
went calmly on and ended by intrusting his manuscript to the hands of
Don Jerónimo. And he could rest assured that his drama would be
produced. The veteran of the greenrooms exercised a strong influence,
akin to intimidation, over managers and actors alike; when he was