CHAPTER IV

THE ARRIVAL OF THE COUSIN

When Rosarito left him so abruptly the Penitentiary looked toward the
garden wall, and seeing the faces of Licurgo and his companion, said to
himself:

"So the prodigy is already here, then."

He remained thoughtful for some moments, his cloak, grasped with both
hands, folded over his abdomen, his eyes fixed on the ground, his
gold-rimmed spectacles slipping gently toward the point of his nose, his
under-lip moist and projecting, and his iron-gray eyebrows gathered in
a slight frown. He was a pious and holy man, of uncommon learning and of
irreproachable clerical habits, a little past his sixtieth year, affable
in his manners, courteous and kind, and greatly addicted to giving
advice and counsel to both men and women. For many years past he
had been master of Latin and rhetoric in the Institute, which noble
profession had supplied him with a large fund of quotations from Horace
and of florid metaphors, which he employed with wit and opportuneness.
Nothing more need be said regarding this personage, but that, as soon as
he heard the trot of the animals approaching the Calle del Condestable,
he arranged the folds of his cloak, straightened his hat, which was not
altogether correctly placed upon his venerable head, and, walking toward
the house, murmured:

"Let us go and see this paragon."