n the wall was hung the stuffed head of the bull that had given
Senor Tomas the tremendous gash which had torn his leg open and had
obliged him to lay aside forever the garb of a toreador. At the rear,
the bartender had fallen asleep behind the polished bar, on which a
little fountain of water was playing its perpetual music.

The two men sat down at a big table, and the tavern-keeper clapped his
hands together.

"Hey you, there!" he cried.

The bartender woke up and came to him.

"What'll you have?" asked he.

"Bring some olives and two cups of wine."

A long pause followed. Senor Tomas with voracious pulls at his
smoldering cigar set its tip glowing. A kind of gloomy preoccupation
hardened his close-shaven face--a face that showed itself bronzed and
fleshy beneath the white hair grandly combed and curled upon his
forehead.

Presently he began:

"I hate to see two men fight, because if they're spirited it's bound to
be serious. But still I can't bear to see a good man and a hard-working
man be made a laughing-stock for everybody. Get me?"

Amadeo Zureda first grew pale and then red. Yes, he knew something was
up. The old man had called him to tell him some terrible mystery. He
felt that the strange feeling of vacancy all about him, which he had
been sensing for some time, was at last going to be explained. He
trembled. Something black, something vast was closing over his head; it
might be one of those fearful tragedies that sometimes cut a human life
in twain.

"I don't know how to talk, and I don't like to talk," went on the
tavern-keeper. "That's why I don't beat round the bush, but I call a
spade a spade. Yes, sir, I call things by their right names. Because in
this world, Amadeo--you mark my words--everything's got a name."

"That's so, Senor Tomas."

"All right. And I'm one of those fellows that go right after the truth
the way I used to go after the bull--go the quickest way, which is the
best way, because it's the shortest."

"That's right, too."

"Well, then. I like you first-rate, Amadeo. I know you're a worker, and
I know you're one of those honest men that wouldn't stand for any
crooked work to turn a dollar. And I know, too, you're a man that knows
how to use his fists and how to run up the battle-flag of the soul, when
you have to. I'm sure of all this. And by the same token, I won't let
anybody make fun of you."

"Thanks, Senor Tomas."

"All right! Now, then, in my house, right here,