The boy's faculties of adaptation were indisputably enormous, for
after a week in the landlady's house it was as if he had always lived
there.

His skill at magic was sharpened: whenever he was needed he was not to
be seen and no sooner was anybody's back turned than he was in the
street playing with the boys of the neighbourhood.

As a result of his games and his scrapes he got his clothes so dirty
and torn that the landlady nicknamed him the page Don Rompe-Galas,
recalling a tattered character from a sainete that Dona Casiana,
according to her affirmations, had seen played in her halycon days.

Generally, those who most made use of Manuel's services were the
journalist whom they called the Superman--he sent the boy off with
copy to the printers--and Celia and Irene, who employed him for
bearing notes and requests for money to their friends. Dona Violante,
whenever she pilfered a few centimos from her daughter would dispatch
Manuel to the store for a package of cigarettes, and give him a cigar
for the errand.

"Smoke it here," she would say. "Nobody'll see you."

Manuel would sit down upon a trunk and the old lady, a cigarette in
her mouth and blowing smoke through her nostrils, would recount
adventures from the days of her glory.

That room of Dona Violante and her daughters was a haunt of infection;
from the hooks nailed to the wall hung dirty rags, and between the
lack of air and the medley of odours a stench arose strong enough to