very time he referred to what he
called his vocation, his father would fly into a rage. "Do you think
that is what I've worked for all these years?" He could remember the
time when, as a poor clerk, he had been forced to fawn on his superiors
and listen humbly, cringingly, to their reprimands. He did not want a
boy of his to be shoved about hither and thither like a mere machine.
"Plenty of brass buttons," he exclaimed with the scorn of a man never to
be taken in by external show, "and plenty of gold braid! But after all,
a slave, a slave!"

No, he wanted to see his son free and influential, continuing the
conquest of the city, completing the family greatness of which he had
laid the foundations, getting power over people much as he himself had
gotten power over money. Ramon must become a lawyer, the only career for
a man destined to rule others. It was a passionate ambition the old
pettifogger had, to see his scion enter through the front door and with
head proudly erect, the precincts of the law, into which he had crawled
so cautiously and at the risk, more than once, of being dragged out with
a chain fastened to his ankle.

Ramon spent several years in Valencia without getting beyond the
elementary courses in Common Law. The cursed classes were held in the
morning, you see, and he had to go to bed at dawn--the hour when the
lights in the pool-rooms went out. Besides, in his quarters at the hotel
he had a magnificent shotgun--a present from his father; and
homesickness for the orchards made him pass many an afternoon at the
pigeon traps where he was far better known than at the University.

This fine specimen of masculine youth--tall, muscular, tanned, with a
pair of domineering eyes to which thick eyebrows gave a touch of
harshness--had been born for action, and excitement; Ramon simply
couldn't concentrate on books!

Old Brull, who through niggardliness and prudence had placed his son on
"half rations," as he put it, sent the boy just money enough to keep him
going; but dupe, in turn, of the wiles he had formerly practiced on the
rustics of Alcira, he was compelled to make frequent trips to Valencia,
to come to some understanding with money lenders there, who had
advanced loans to his son on such terms that insolvency might lead Ramon
to a prison cell.

Home to Alcira came rumors of other exploits by the "Prince," as don
Jaime called his boy in view of the latter's ability to run through
money. In parties with