of Moors. The alcalde's wife talked incessantly and was not wanting in
humor.

The dean was a very old man, corpulent and red-faced, plethoric and
apoplectic looking, a man so obese that he seemed bursting out of his
skin. He had belonged to one of the suppressed religious orders; he
talked only of religious matters; and from the very first manifested the
most profound contempt for Pepe Rey. The latter appeared every moment
more unable to accommodate himself to a society so little to his
taste. His disposition--not at all malleable, hard, and very little
flexible--rejected the duplicities and the compromises of language to
simulate concord when it did not exist. He remained, then, very grave
during the whole of the tiresome evening, obliged as he was to endure
the oratorical vehemence of the alcalde's wife, who, without being Fame,
had the privilege of fatiguing with a hundred tongues the ears of men.
If, in some brief respite which this lady gave her hearers, Pepe Rey
made an attempt to approach his cousin, the Penitentiary attached
himself to him instantly, like the mollusk to the rock; taking him apart
with a mysterious air to propose to him an excursion with Senor Don
Cayetano to Mundogrande, or a fishing party on the clear waters of the
Nahara.

At last the evening came to an end, as every thing does in this world.
The dean retired, leaving the house, as it seemed, empty, and very soon
there remained of the alcalde's wife only an echo, like the buzz
which remains in the air after a storm has passed away. The judge also
deprived the company of his presence, and at last Don Inocencio gave his
nephew the signal for departure.

"Come, boy, come; for it is late," he said, smiling. "How you have