cried:

"Let me embrace you, my dear Don Jose."

They embraced each other cordially. Don Cayetano and Pepe were already
acquainted with each other, for the eminent scholar and bibliophile was
in the habit of making a trip to Madrid whenever an executor's sale of
the stock of some dealer in old books was advertised. Don Cayetano was
tall and thin, of middle age, although constant study or ill-health
had given him a worn appearance; he expressed himself with a refined
correctness which became him admirably, and he was affectionate and
amiable in his manners, at times to excess. With respect to his vast
learning, what can be said but that he was a real prodigy? In Madrid his
name was always mentioned with respect, and if Don Cayetano had lived
in the capital, he could not have escaped becoming a member, in spite of
his modesty, of every academy in it, past, present, and to come. But he
was fond of quiet and retirement, and the place which vanity occupies
in the souls of others, a pure passion for books, a love of solitary and
secluded study, without any other aim or incentive than the books and
the study themselves, occupied in his.

He had formed in Orbajosa one of the finest libraries that is to be
found in all Spain, and among his books he passed long hours of the day
and of the night, compiling, classifying, taking notes, and selecting
various sorts of precious information, or composing, perhaps, some
hitherto unheard-of and undreamed-of work, worthy of so great a mind.
His habits were patriarchal; he ate little, drank less, and his only
dissipations consisted of a luncheon in the Alamillos on very great
occasions, and daily walks to a place called Mundogrande, where were
often disinterred from the accumulated dust of twenty centuries, medals,