These and other conversations of a similar kind were to be heard in the
rooms of the Casino in those days. Notwithstanding this boastful talk,
so common in small towns, which, for the very reason that they are
small, are generally arrogant, Rey was not without finding sincere
friends among the members of the learned corporation, for they were not
all gossips, nor were there wanting among them persons of good sense.
But our hero had the misfortune--if misfortune it can be called--to be
unusually frank in the manifestation of his feelings, and this awakened
some antipathy toward him.

Days passed. In addition to the natural disgust which the social customs
of the episcopal city produced in him, various causes, all of them
disagreeable, began to develop in his mind a profound sadness, chief
among these causes being the crowd of litigants that swarmed about him
like voracious ants. Many others of the neighboring landowners besides
Uncle Licurgo claimed damages from him, or asked him to render accounts
for lands managed by his grandfather. A claim was also brought against
him because of a certain contract of partnership entered into by his
mother and which, as it appeared, had not been fulfilled; and he was
required in the same way to acknowledge a mortgage on the estate of
The Poplars executed in an irregular form by his uncle. Claims swarmed
around him, multiplying with ant-like rapidity. He had come to the
determination to renounce the ownership of his lands, but meanwhile his
dignity required that he should not yield to the wily manoeuvres of the
artful rustics; and as the town-council brought a claim against him also
on account of a pretended confusion of the boundary lines of his
estate with those of an adjoining wood belonging to the town-lands, the
unfortunate young man found himself at every step obliged to prove his
rights, which were being continually called in question. His honor