isode and kept his companions
laughing noisily. And up there was the Moorish city. They remembered
that alley just off the market at the Grao where you brushed the wall on
each side with your elbows? Well, that was a mile wide compared to the
holes those Moors crawled through, always uphill, the eaves coming
almost together overhead, and a stream of slop running down over the
steps in the pavement. You needed to have plenty of liquor aboard and
your nostrils plugged before you walked in front of the shops up there,
rotten filthy dens where those dark-skinned devils squatted smoking in
the doorways, muttering God knows what in that lingo of theirs. But you
could live like a king with those people, yes, sir, and for very little,
provided of course you didn't mind seeing people eat with their fingers
after rubbing them in the dirt! You got a whole meal for a couple of
cents, a pair of red painted eggs like you saw at home at Easter, and
tea in cups the size of egg-shells,--and you could go to sleep if you
wanted to, on the couch of some Moorish cafe there, to the sound of a
flute and the banging of tambourines.

And then the women! Little Moor girls, their cheeks all painted up,
their finger-nails stained blue, and queer tattooing on their breasts
and backs; and then black ones who worked as _masseuses_ in the baths;
and the ladies, finally, with veils over their faces till all you could
see was their nose and one eye, stumbling along in big fluffy trousers,
wearing gold-cloth vests under their shawls, their arms like the
show-window of a jewelry store, and all sorts of medals, coins, and
half-moons, on their bosoms. "And what eyes! You never saw anything like
it, boys! And the shapes they have. I remember once I ran into a big
black one--rich, I guess--in a street in the upper part of town. Well,
you know how I am--I simply couldn't help it! I just gave her a little
pinch from behind. Well, sir, that woman squealed like a sick rat, and
now from this direction and now from that a lot of big ugly devils came
running with clubs the size of your arm. There was a fellow with me, and
we took out our knives and held the gang off till the zouaves came. They
put us in the coop for a couple of days, and then the consul got us out.
You see," Tonet concluded, looking at his feet with an expression of
weariness, "in those days I was rather wild!" But his companions were
much impressed with the superiority of a man who had done all that