esperate fashion that the good Dona Adelaida was alarmed.

"Come, come, Jacobito, my son, don't grieve, don't be so much troubled,
because you will be sure to fall sick.... There is no help for it....
Going to bed without taking anything was a piece of folly. Your father
will come round all right, and finally everything will be settled as you
want it. You certainly must have had a very bad night! You must not go
on this way trifling with your stomach!... And now what are you going to
do, my son? I am afraid for you with such a rash disposition as God has
given you!"

When Jacobo heard this question, he for a moment suspended the hateful
task of swallowing his chocolate, raised his angry face to the
housekeeper, and shouted with concentrated fury:--

"What am I going to do!... You shall see, you shall see what I am going
to do!"

And then he once more began to grit his teeth so terribly that Dona
Adelaida was frightened out of her wits, and exclaimed:--

"Come now, calm yourself, calm yourself, Jacobito! You know that I was
present when you were born, and that your sainted mother, who left you
when you were a mere baby--poor woman!--charged me to have a watchful
eye over you. If you should do anything desperate, you will kill me with
sorrow.... Come, my son, tell me what you intend to do...."

The lad, pushing away the chocolate cup with an energetic movement, and
rolling his eyes frenziedly, screamed rather than said:--

"Do you want to know what I am going to do?... Then I will tell you this
very instant.... I am going to the factory, I am going to put on a
blouse, I am going to daub my hands with grease, pull the candle moulds,
and roast my face in front of the furnaces.... And when any stranger
comes to the factory, the hands will be able to say: 'This man whom you
see--dirty, nasty, ill-smelling--used to be a gentleman cadet, a cadet
in the Military Academy!... Ah!" he said, concluding with a muffled
voice, "Ah! no one knows, no one knows what Jacobo Utrilla is capable
of!"

The housekeeper, who was expecting some desperate resolution, when she
found that it was of this sort, could not refrain from a cry of joy.

"That is right, my son, that is right! That is the best way of heaping
coals of fire on the heads of your father and brother, who have been
pestering me to death by saying that you were of no use, that you were a
lazybones...."

"But before doing that," interrupted Jacobo, extending both hands as