days and declared that he was the same now as
then, with his white, brush-like mustache, his face that looked like a
sun of wrinkles, his aggressive eyes and cadaverous thinness, as if all
the sap of his life had been consumed in the daily motions of his feet
and hands about the vats of the tannery.

He was the only representative of the guild's glories, the sole survivor
of those _blanquers_ who were an honor to Valencian history. The
grandchildren of his former companions had become corrupted with the
march of time; they were proprietors of large establishments, with
thousands of workmen, but they would be lost if they ever had to tan a
skin with their soft, business-man's hands. Only he could call himself a
_blanquer_ of the old school, working every day in his little hut near
the guild house; master and toiler at the same time, with no other
assistants than his sons and grandchildren; his workshop was of the old
kind, amid sweet domestic surroundings, with neither threats of strikes
nor quarrels over the day's pay.

The centuries had raised the level of the street, converting Senor
Vicente's shop into a gloomy cave. The door through which his ancestors
had entered had grown smaller and smaller from the bottom until it had
become little more than a window. Five stairs connected the street with
the damp floor of the tannery, and above, near a pointed arch, a relic
of medieval Valencia, floated like banners the skins that had been hung
up to dry, wafting about the unbearable odor of the leather. The old man
by no means envied the _moderns_, in their luxuriously appointed
business offices. Surely they blushed with shame on passing through his
lane and seeing him, at breakfast hour, taking the sun,--his sleeves and
trousers rolled up, showing his thin arms and legs, stained red,--with
the pride of a robust old age that permitted him to battle daily with
the hides.

Valencia was preparing to celebrate the centenary of one of its famous
saints, and the guild of _blanquers_, like the other historic guilds,
wished to make its contribution to the festivities. Senor Vicente, with
the prestige of his years, imposed his will upon all the masters. The
_blanquers_ should remain what they were. All the glories of their past,
long sequestrated in the chapel, must figure in the procession. And it
was high time they were displayed in public! His gaze, wandering about
the chapel, seemed to caress the guild's relics; the sixteenth cen