SEÑOR ANSELMO, the conductor of the band of Sarrio, came to tell the President of the Academy that the mayor threatened to stop the orchestra supplies if it attended St. Anthony's fair that afternoon.

"How is that?" asked Don Mateo, raising himself up in bed, where he still was, and stretching out his hand for his spectacles on a little table by his side. "Stop supplies! Why should he stop the supplies?"

"I don't know. Prospero has just sent to tell me so."

"What has the band's going to St. Anthony's fair to do with him?" he returned in a tone of irritation.

"I think it is because a gentleman is arriving to-day at Don Rosendo's, and as the fair will block the road—"

"Ah, yes, the Duke of Tornos; but what has that to do with it? Come, they are mad—Look here, leave me an instant. I am going to dress, and then I will go and see Maza. I dare say we shall be able to arrange matters. Leave me."

SeÑor Anselmo left the room, and quicker than could have been expected from his years and infirmities, Don Mateo appeared, ready to go out. His wife and his daughter were, as usual, at church. He asked for some breakfast.

"I can not give it to you, sir. The seÑora has the keys, and there is no chocolate out."

"Always the same!" grumbled the old man, not so vexed as he ought to have been. "I don't know why she can't leave out what is necessary. It is true that I generally get up late, but there may be cases of important business, like to-day."

"Shall I go and ask for an ounce of chocolate from a neighbor?"

"No, there is no need. I am sure Matilda would be vexed. Is there nothing to eat handy?"

The servant did not answer for some seconds.

"No, seÑor; there is nothing. You know that the seÑora——"

"Yes, yes, I know."

Don Mateo went to the sideboard and began pulling open the drawers. Nothing—there was nothing but the table utensils: spoons, forks, corkscrew, etc.; but some chocolate drops and a plate of biscuits could be seen through the glass cupboard door.

"Caramba! if there were only a key," and drawing out his own bunch he proceeded to try the lock with each key on the ring, but his efforts were fruitless. At last in despair he readjusted his spectacles, put on his hat, and was starting off on his expedition, saying:

"Well, well, we will fast to-day."

But before arriving at the door he turned round and said abruptly to the maid:

"Is there any bread about?"

"The baker has not come yet, but you can have some of mine," returned the girl, smiling.

"All right; let me see this bread of yours."

So they repaired to the kitchen, and the servant lifting the lid from the bread-pan, Don Mateo took out a moderate-sized piece of almost black rye bread.

"All right; I don't object to your black bread," he said, cutting himself a piece. "Health to the darkies," he then added, with a jocoseness he had not ventured to display for years, as he swallowed a mouthful. The servant smiled, astonished at his good humor.

"It has more flavor than ours. If it were not quite so hard!"

He then brushed away the crumbs with his hand, readjusted his spectacles, and after taking a draft of water—for the wine was also locked up—he sallied forth in the direction of the Town Hall. The clock of the building was striking ten. He passed through the great portico, mounted the wide, stone staircase, and arriving at the corridor, where the dust was more than an inch thick, he asked Marcones, who came forward, for Don Gabino.

"The mayor is sitting."

"Sitting! The deuce he is! At this hour?"

It was, in fact, a rare occurrence. Two years had elapsed since the death of Don Roque, and those of the Club who then took office at the Town Hall with Don Rufo as mayor for more than a year and a half were now reaping the consequences of subsequent defeat. They were still in the majority in the municipal corporation, but the Cabin party finally worked so effectually in Madrid that Gabino Maza was elected mayor. It was said that this was due to the hateful treachery of Rojas Salcedo, who, noting at the previous municipal elections that the power of the Cabin party was on the increase, now went over to that side. Thus the storm of hatred and abuse passed upon him by the supporters of Don Belinchon was indescribable.

A fierce struggle ensued. Each sitting of the Town Council was a disgrace. The Maza party sued the ex-corporation for the depreciation of the funds, demanding reimbursement of the same.

The members of the Belinchon party were quite sure that justice would be accorded them in the Audience Chamber, but on the principle that God helps those who help themselves they brought all possible influence to bear in their favor, and letters went to and from Madrid. The Cabin party was not, however, remiss in opposition on its side, and Maza made his opponents feel the force of his rod of power. As Don Rosendo's majority consisted only of two votes, Gabino spared no pains to rob him of them. Sometimes he convoked a special meeting when it was impossible for any one of them to come; at other times he sent false notices to certain councilors, saying that the session was postponed; at other times, when a measure was to be put to the vote, he, by common consent with his friends, made it in such an ambiguous way that it confounded Don Rosendo's supporters, and as it happened on more than one occasion, they voted against themselves. Moreover, he once had some councilors locked in the office and took away the key. After the dignitaries of the corporation were weary of calling out and hammering at the door, an official came and opened it, but the voting had taken place without them.

Thanks to these and other tactics, and countless acts of arbitrariness, the choleric ex-naval officer achieved his great object of avenging himself on his enemies. His strategy was chiefly exhibited in attacks where it hurt the most; that is to say, on their house property. If any member of the Club owned one or more houses in a street in which no friend of his own had any property, he ordered the architect of the corporation to level the road and make it lower, by which course the foundations of the houses were laid bare and the buildings were in danger of falling to the ground, to say nothing of the inconvenience of having to put ladders for ingress. Thus during the few months of his mayoralty there were more than twenty houses in Sarrio with the foundations exposed, and at other times he had the roads raised so that the houses were flooded when it rained.

Such freaks naturally excited a great commotion among Don Belinchon's partizans. Rabid diatribes appeared in "The Light," and incessant scenes took place at the municipal sessions. But Maza took it all quite quietly, and calmly pursued his urban reforms, receiving meanwhile the complaints of his victims with a cruel smile, and giving fierce, sarcastic replies to the speeches of the opposite party.

Marcones took Don Mateo into a room adjoining the sessional chamber. The people's gallery was too small to admit more than one decent-sized person; and, moreover, the disputes of those fighting cocks were of little interest to outsiders. The two notaries of the place were in friendly converse in the same room, Don Victor Varela and Sanjurjo; the first was a little old man, with prominent eyes and such a coarsely made wig that it looked like straw, and the other was a man of middle age with a grayish mustache, afflicted with lameness from his birth. They greeted our old man like a great friend, and after the manner of people who see each other every day. Indeed, there was nobody in the town who could help greeting Don Mateo.

"You are waiting for the meeting to be over, eh?"

"Yes, seÑor," returned one of the two men, in so abrupt and cold a tone that the old gentleman felt no desire to pursue the subject further.

He sought for another topic, and hit upon sport as one more congenial to the tastes of the depositaries of public trust. Both were ardent sportsmen after quails, woodcock, etc., but their love of coursing was extreme. Directly any leisure time was at their disposal the swift, innocent animals were subjected to a fearful martyrdom at the hands of these notaries of the corporation, actively seconded by half a dozen greyhounds, kept half starved to quicken their pace.

To talk of hares was next door to heaven to Don Victor; as for Sanjurjo, to stand up to his waist in brambles and to start one was heaven itself.

"What a pity to lose such a day!" exclaimed Don Victor with a sigh as he looked through the window covered with dust.

"True," returned Sanjurjo with another sigh, "but I dare say the ground at Maribona is rather soft; there has been a good deal of rain the last few days."

"What does that matter?" said Don Mateo. "Now in this summer weather it soon gets dry, as the ground so readily absorbs the damp."

The lawyers looked at each other in dismay.

"PÉpe la Esquila told me," he continued, "that the peasant folk have seen hares jumping about in Ladreda."

"Yes, we know," said Sanjurjo. "If it were not for some trifle to-day we should have gone off there," and he gave a sign of intelligence to Don Victor.

"Well, PÉpe is going this morning with Fermo; I heard so yesterday evening."

The notaries looked at each other in alarm.

"What did I tell you, Sanjurjo?" exclaimed Don Victor.

"Well, I must confess the rogue has taken me in. Never mind, there will be some left. We will go to-morrow, you and I, Don Victor."

But the news had saddened them, and they preserved an obstinate silence. Excited voices and loud noises were audible in the chamber, while the sharp ting of the president's bell was constantly heard calling to order.

Don Mateo, feeling quite depressed at his inability to sustain the conversation, made another attempt with Sanjurjo.

"Well, man, I should not have thought you would have cared for sport with your lame leg."

"What, how? What are you thinking of? He runs like a greyhound," exclaimed Don Victor, with affectionate enthusiasm. "Directly he is on the track of a hare he ceases to be lame. And I say that he invented his lameness to excite pity. He is no more lame than you or I."

"If you could only make me well," returned Sanjurjo, smiling resignedly.

The joke put them all in good spirits. Don Victor recounted the feats of his friend on various occasions:

"One day he went on all fours so as to run better. That was a sight."

"What," queried Don Mateo in astonishment, "on all fours?"

"Yes, it is a fact," returned Sanjurjo, laughing, and adding that he had learned to run like that as a child, when his lameness was more pronounced, and prevented him being a match for his playfellows. Then he, on his side, spoke of Don Victor as a lazy fellow, who would scan every blade of grass to avoid taking an unnecessary step, whereupon Don Victor joined in the laugh against himself, saying that hares were not only started with the legs, but with the eyes as well.

"How many times has your obstinacy ended in failure? Do you recollect that St. Peter's Day three years ago, when you left me alone near Arceanes? Who started the hare then—you, who went off like the wind, or I, who remained quietly behind?"

The conversation now became more and more animated, to the great delight of Don Mateo, who could never bear to see any one look bored in his presence. When their cheerful talk made them oblivious to the shouts and ringing of the bell going on in the other room, the door was thrown open, and the majestic figure of Don Belinchon appeared in a state of excitement difficult to describe. His hair was disordered, some locks hanging about his face damp with sweat, his cheeks were aflame, his eyes glassy, and the bow of his cravat was undone.

"Sanjurjo, Sanjurjo, come here!" he said in a strange voice, without greeting or even seeing Don Mateo. The notary rose quietly from his seat, and entered the large room with him. Don Victor made no allusion to the sudden exit, but continued quietly talking on the same subject with Don Mateo, who did not dare to ask any questions. At the end of some time Sanjurjo reappeared, shut the door behind him, took his seat again, and continued his interrupted conversation.

But not many minutes elapsed before the door was again roughly opened, and the short, stout form of Don Pedro Miranda appeared in the same state of excitement as that of the former arrival.

"Don Victor, Don Victor, come here!"

He also neither greeted nor saw Don Mateo.

The notary quietly rose from his seat and followed him.

"What the devil does this mean?" asked Don Mateo of Sanjurjo when the door was closed.

The only reply was a scornful shrug of the shoulders.

"What foolery!" grumbled Don Mateo. "Belinchon and Miranda never used to get so excited about these affairs of the corporation, and want to be mayor!"

Things had indeed changed. The violent party feeling that both sides brought to bear in every province was in fuller force in the municipal corporation than anywhere. Maza's tyranny had so infuriated Don Rosendo's friends that they spared no means to contravene it. They wished at all costs to bring an action against him for his abuse of authority. To this end Belinchon had secured the services of the lawyer Sanjurjo, who constantly attended him at the sittings, and drew up statements and statements of the arbitrary conduct of the mayor, all of which were sent to the courts of justice, but there they were blocked, thanks to the ill-will of the judge.

Then the Cabin party employed the other lawyer, who also drew up documents complaining of the insubordination of the majority, and of its carrying resolutions on subjects of which it knew nothing. When the sitting was over Mateo was taken into the mayor's room. He was found sipping a refreshing concoction which was considered good for the bile, but his system was greatly tried by his daily resort to this remedy for his disorder. He was in an excited, agitated state, for the sardonic smile and scornful calm adopted at the sittings were merely assumed, while his very vitals were consumed with rage, which seemed to turn his blood to gall. What trouble it cost him to repress those wild, blind outbursts of passion which assailed him at every step!

Two of his friends were discussing the meeting, while he, silent and livid, with dark circles under his eyes, stirred his concoction with a spoon. Don Mateo, as one of the very few persons who remained neutral in Sarrio, was received with frankness and affability.

"Take a seat, Don Mateo. What good news brings you here?"

The old man replied that he came to know if the report were true that the band would be put down if it attended the St. Anthony fair that afternoon. The face of Maza darkened. It was quite true that it could no longer count upon any support from the corporation if the instruments were taken out that afternoon from the Academy. Don Mateo asked:

"But why?"

After grinding his teeth as a preface to his remark, Maza replied that he did not wish to celebrate the arrival of a person who was coming that afternoon on a visit to Belinchon, for, he added: "Don Quixote would be quite capable of thinking that the band had attended in honor of his guest."

"But, Gabino, as it has attended every year, nobody could think any such thing. You must bear in mind that this is the chief fair of the town, and that it will be very sad for the young people not to have a little dancing and amusement just then."

"They must do without it to-day. I am very sorry. If the band likes to go it can go, but it knows what it has to expect."

It was impossible to turn him from his decision. At first Don Mateo used persuasion, and then he grew angry, and with the privilege of his years and his unfailing good intentions, which nobody in the town could doubt, he told Maza and his two councilors present a few home truths, which neither they nor the choleric mayor could deny.

"Perhaps you are right, Don Mateo; but what am I to do? A feud is a feud. Our self-respect is at stake. If we don't keep these rascals down they will have us down."

The old man left the consistorial building more sad than angry. The vexations and worries he had suffered of the kind during the last three years were innumerable. He could count on nobody to second him in any plan for festivities. In vain did he exert himself to get any operatic or dramatic company for the theatre; it soon fell to the ground, for if the Club element prevailed the Cabin party withdrew, and vice versÂ. And as a general gathering is necessary for a theatrical performance, the actors went off half dead with hunger.

When Don Mateo went about begging for subscriptions, the first thing asked was:

"Has So-and-so subscribed, and So-and-so, and So-and-so?" And if he answered in the affirmative, the reply would be:

"Then do not count upon us."

Our good friend tried at last to win them over by diplomacy, but the implacable townsfolk were too sharp for him, and they would not let him escape telling them who were going. And if this was so with regard to the theatre, it was much worse in the case of any artists pitching their tents in the town.

There was a famous violinist, a man who played admirably on an instrument of wood and straw; four bell-ringers, brothers; a Moor, who exhibited two wise cows; an English scientist with a microscope; a celebrated Chinese giant, and a sea-calf that said "papa," "mama," etc. Don Mateo had patronized them all, but his canvassing campaigns on their behalf did not prove successful. All the curiosities, Spanish as well as foreign, knew by report our retired colonel, and directly they set foot in Sarrio they went to call at his house. He went with them to see the mayor, introduced them at the Club, recommended them to the owner of the storehouse where they thought of exhibiting, and he nearly always headed the subscription to pay their journey, and not one of them left the town in former days without being pleased and satisfied; but now they all said their receipts did not pay for the flagstaffs.

Don Mateo's right hand in all these festivities was Severino, of the ironmongery shop. Nobody in the province could equal him in the manufacture of beautiful, elegant, well-arranged decorations, nor in the difficult art of putting up green arches with lamps for the night, nor in his power of sending off rockets swiftly and perpendicularly. Well, this ingenious fellow, who had so delighted the town with his various inventions, had now been idle for some time.

"Severino, we must think of arranging something for the eve of St. Anthony."

"What, Don Mateo, what?" returned the shop-keeper in a depressed tone.

"An illumination of two hundred lamps, an orb, and a few rockets."

"Do you wish us to pay the expense, as we did at the festival of Santa Engracia?"

"Perhaps the West Indians will pay this time," muttered Don Mateo.

"No; don't be so simple; you seem to forget what they are. Pay, indeed! Precious little will they pay!"

Everybody was rather unjust to the West Indians. They simply maintained a strict neutrality, and wondered that worthy men like Belinchon, Miranda, and others should excite themselves so much about things outside their respective occupations and businesses. That handful of calm people in the midst of the fierce contest which waged continually would have been like the chorus of Greek tragedies if only they had not been wanting in any exhibition of either joy or sorrow to either the successes or the reverses of the actors in question. The West Indians of Sarrio were utterly apathetic, dulled by their idle, monotonous life, in which the recollections of their quondam hard work and trials in Cuba sometimes filled them with horror, and added to their sense of comfort at their present circumstances. What did they care for the resolutions carried by the corporation, the attacks made in "The Light" and "The Youth of Sarrio," or the schisms with which the town was continually rent! While they were left quiet to take a turn in the morning on the Mole (and there was no fear of that being disturbed), to play billiards or tresillo after dinner, and to take those famous walks in parties in the picturesque suburbs, they did not care for anything. So little interest did they take that they hardly ever mentioned the episodes of the feud when they were together. The only thing that could disturb them was the telegraphic notification of the rise and fall of the public funds in which their capital was placed.

Otherwise they were model citizens, they gave no offense to anybody, and they only enjoyed what they had worked hard for with their hands. They did not give money to entertainments and performances. But this was not a grave offense, for they saw no necessity for such festivities. What in the world did people want more than to live in a pleasant climate and quietly to eat, work, and sleep the hours away? Besides, they had conferred a benefit on the town by conducting to the altar a number of ladies between the years of twenty-five and thirty, who without this unexpected deliverance would have been left to wither away on the stalk. Now they were almost all stout, quiet matrons, mothers of happy families, and managers of well-ordered houses.

These West Indians were the only people who escaped the incessant attacks of the press, for whatever antipathy was nourished by both parties against them, they did not dare make any public allusion to them, as they had no ground for doing so. They therefore had to content themselves with grumbling and calling them money-laden asses behind their backs.

Thus in the course of three years Sarrio attained the height of perfection that had been the dream of Don Rosendo; that is to say, there was no longer any private life. The deeds of the townsfolk, were they of the most private or the most insignificant character, came to light in the press, and were the subject of censure, comment, and ridicule. Nobody was safe, even in the sanctuary of his home. If rather ugly words passed between a man and his wife, if he chastised his children with more or less severity, if he were short of money, if he were at all dissipated, if he dropped the c's in the middle of words and said reto and pato instead of recto (straight) and pacto (agreement), if he ate with his fingers or snored loudly: all these interesting details were recorded for the benefit of the public in "The Light" and "The Youth of Sarrio," sometimes directly, and other times by means of the famous Oriental stories already mentioned.

From the municipal chamber Don Mateo repaired to the Academy, where SeÑor Anselmo was waiting for him, and it was with great tact that he told him that the band was not to go out that afternoon.

By dint of negotiations and diplomacy he had so far managed to keep it going as well as the Lyceum, although no theatrical performances were now given there, neither was there any dancing, excepting on particular days, such as those of Candlemas, Carnival, and Santa Engracia; but by force of tact and energy Don Mateo had succeeded in making the majority of the members continue their monthly subscription of two pesetas. All the other places of recreation in which the town had been so rich had disappeared. The cause of all the excitement at the present time was the arrival of the Duke of Tornos.