?"

Caesar would laugh and say:

"I think you ought to take off the flowers, or it ought to be smaller."

Amparito accepted Caesar's suggestions as if they had been, articles of
faith.

Caesar, on his part, had a great admiration for his wife. What strength
for facing life! What amazing energy!

"I walk among brambles and leave a piece of my clothing on every one of
them," thought Caesar, "and she passes artlessly between all obstacles,
with the ease of an ethereal thing. It's extraordinary!"

It pleased Amparito to be thus observed.

Her husband used to tell her:

"You have, as it were, ten or twelve Amparitos inside of you; it often
seems to me that you are a whole round of Amparitos."

"Well, you are not more than one Caesar to me."

"That's because I have the ugly vice of talking and of being
consequential."

"Don't I talk?"

"Yes, in another way."

_DOUBT_

In the spring they went to Castro, and the members of the Workmen's Club
presented themselves before Caesar to remind him of a project for a
Co-operative and a School, which he had promised them. They were all
ready to put up what was necessary for realizing both plans.

Caesar listened to them, and although with great coldness, said yes,
that he was ready to initiate the scheme. A few days later, in Dr.
Ortigosa's _Protest_, there was enthusiastic talk of the Great
Co-operative, which, when established, would improve, and at the same
time cheapen necessary articles.

The same day that the paper came out with this news, a commission of the
shopkeepers of Castro waited on Caesar. The scheme would ruin them. It
was especially the small shopkeepers that considered themselves most
injured.

Caesar replied that he would think it over and decide in an equitable
manner, looking for a way to harmonize the interests of all people.
Really he didn't know what to do, and as he had no great desire to begin
new undertakings, he wanted to call the Co-operative dead, but Dr.
Ortigosa was not disposed to abandon the idea.

"It is certain that if goods are made cheaper," said the doctor, "and
the Co-operative is opened to the public, the shopkeepers will have to
fight it, and then either they or we shall be ruined; but something else
can be done, and that is to sell articles to the public at the same
price as the tradesmen, and arrange it that members get a dividend from
the profits of the society. In that way there will be no fight, at any
rate not at