answer:
“What a droll señorito!”
Whenever he went to engage a carriage for his mother the moment they caught sight of him, if he was a league{47} away, they would laugh and lower the sign. And he would appear upon the scene addressing them something in this fashion:
{47}
“Winged Automedon, touch your fiery courser with the whip that he may fly to my enchanted palace. Already the generous steed, impatient, champs the golden bit. Behold him flecked with snowy foam. Buloniu, of what were you thinking, that you did not perceive my approach?”
“I was reading La Correspondencia, Señorito.”
“La Correspondencia! What name have thy sacrilegious lips pronounced? La Correspondencia! By the tail of Satan! A revolutionary, an anarchical, a nihilistic sheet. Quick! Cast away that venom before thou comest near the honorable dwelling of peaceful citizens. Hasten, run, fly, coachman! Hurrah, Cossack of the desert! On, drunkard, demagogue!”{48}
{48}
The more extravagant the absurdities he strung together the more delighted were the drivers.
One morning Rogelio left the house wrapped up to the eyes in his cloak, for these closing days of October were bitterly cold, although the bright Madrid sun was shining in all its splendor. As usual, his errand was to go in search of a carriage for Doña Aurora. On reaching the corner of the square he caught sight of one of his favorite equipages—a landau whose lining of Abellano shagreen was less soiled and worn than that of the generality of those vehicles. The driver, a stout man, fair and ruddy, answering to the name of Martin, was a Galician. Rogelio made signs to him as he approached, crying:
“Martin, Martin of the cape! Ho, with the imperial chariot!”
The driver was conversing with a {49}woman whose face was hidden from the student, but at the sound of Rogelio’s voice she turned around and he saw that she was young and not ill-looking, of humble appearance and dressed in mourning.
{49}
“Señorito, what a coincidence!” exclaimed Martin, as he recognized Rogelio. “This young girl is looking for the señorito’s house and she was just asking me the way there. She is a country-woman of ours. She brings a letter——”
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