ringing in my ears and I hummed them, as I wandered about the aisles.

Suddenly, a black shadow shot from behind one of the confessionals,
pounced upon me and seized me around the neck with both hands, almost
choking me. I was paralyzed with fear. It proved to be a fat, greasy
canon, by name Don Tirso Larequi.

"What is your name?" he shouted, shaking me vigorously.

I could not answer because of my fright.

"What is his name?" the priest demanded of the other boys.

"His name is Antonio Garcia," replied my brother Ricardo, coolly.

"Where does he live?"

"In the Calle de Curia, Number 14."

There was no such place, of course.

"I shall see your father at once," shouted the priest, and he rushed out
of the cathedral like a bull.

My brother and I then made our escape through the cloister.

This red-faced priest, fat and ferocious, rushing out of the dark to
choke a nine-year-old boy, has always been to me a symbol of the
Catholic religion.