two men to chew things over and come to an
agreement.

"Now, as for living with you people," said Berlanga, "I'll be very glad
to give five pesetas per. Or I'll better that, if you say so."

"No, no, thanks," answered Zureda. "I don't want to be bargaining with
you. We can all help each other. You and I are like brothers, anyhow."

That night after supper, Rafaela dragged all the useless furniture out
of the dining-room alcove and swept and scoured it clean. Next day she
got up early to go to a hard-by pawnshop, where she bought her an iron
bed with a spring and a woolen mattress. This bed she carefully set up,
and fixed it all fine and soft. A couple of chairs, a washstand and a
little table covered with a green baize spread completed the furnishing
of the room.

After everything was ready, the young woman dressed and combed herself
to receive the guest, who arrived about the middle of the afternoon with
his luggage, to wit: a box with his workman's tools, a trunk and a
little cask. This cask held a certain musty light wine, which--so
Berlanga said, after coffee and one of Zureda's cigars had made him
expansive--had been given him by a "lady friend" of his who ran a
tavern.

A few days passed, days of unusual pleasure to the engineer and his
wife, for the silversmith was a man of joyful moods and very fond of
crooking his elbow, so that his naturally fertile conversation became
hyperbolically colored and quite Andalusian in its exuberance. At
dessert, the merry quips of Berlanga woke sonorous explosions of
hilarity in Amadeo. When he laughed, the engineer would lean his massive
shoulders against the back of the chair. Now and again, as if to
underscore his bursts of merriment, he would deal the table shrewd
blows. After this he would slowly emit his opinions; and if he had to
advise Berlanga, he did it in a kind of paternal way, patiently,
good-naturedly.

When he was quite well again, Amadeo went back to work. The morning he
took leave of his wife, she asked him:

"Which engine have you got, to-day?"

"Nigger," he answered.

"My, what bad luck! I'm afraid something's going to happen to you!"

"Rubbish! Why should it? _I_ can handle her!"

He kissed Rafaela, tenderly pressing her against his big, strong breast.
At this moment an unwholesome thought, grotesquely cruel, cut his mind
like a whip; a thought that he would pass the night awake, out in the
storm, in the engine-cab, while there in Madrid another