ed to Jacinto's nonsense. Ah, those children! When they
once begin there is no stopping them."

The judge of the lower court, the alcalde's lady, and the dean of the
cathedral now made their appearance. They all saluted the engineer,
manifesting in their words and manner, on seeing him, the satisfaction
of gratified curiosity. The judge was one of those clever and
intelligent young men who every day spring into notice in official
circles; aspiring, almost before they are out of the shell, to the
highest political and administrative positions. He gave himself airs of
great importance, and in speaking of himself and of his juvenile toga,
he seemed indirectly to manifest great offence because he had not been
all at once made president of the supreme court. In such inexpert hands,
in a brain thus swollen with vanity, in this incarnation of conceit, had
the state placed the most delicate and the most difficult functions
of human justice. His manners were those of a perfect courtier, and
revealed a scrupulous and minute attention to all that concerned his own
person. He had the insufferable habit of taking off and putting on every
moment his gold eye-glasses, and in his conversation he manifested with
frequency the strong desire which he had to be transferred to Madrid,
in order that he might give his invaluable services to the Department of
Grace and Justice.

The alcalde's lady was a good-natured woman, whose only weakness was to
fancy that she had a great many acquaintances at the court. She asked
Pepe Rey various questions about the fashions, mentioning establishments
in which she had had a mantle or a skirt made on her last journey to
the capital, contemporaneous with the visit of Muley-Abbas, and she also
mentioned the names of a dozen duchesses and marchionesses; speaking
of them with as much familiarity as if they had been friends of her
school-days. She said also that the Countess of M. (famous for her
parties) was a friend of hers and that in '60 she had paid her a visit,
when the countess had invited her to her box at the Teatro Real, where
she saw Muley-Abbas in Moorish dress and accompanied by his retinue
of Moors. The alcalde's wife talked incessantly and was not wanting in
humor.

The dean was a very old man, corpulent and red-faced, plethoric and
apoplectic looking, a man so obese that he seemed bursting out of his
skin. He had belonged to one of the suppressed religious orders; he
talked only of religious