Ah-h-h! If the beefsteak does not soon make its appearance, dreadful scenes of cannibalism will be enacted.”

“Yes,” his mother would answer, smiling, “and it will all amount to your eating a couple of olives and a morsel of meat. Go away with you, you humbug! You have the appetite of a bird.”

The room in which they liked best to sit was neither the parlor—which was almost always solitary and deserted,—{7}nor Rogelio’s study, nor his mother’s room; it was the dining-room, which adjoined the reception-room. Here was the clock which informed Rogelio, negligent about winding his watch, when it was time to go to college; here the little table on which stood the work-basket with the unfinished stocking buried under a pile of numbers of Madrid Comico, Los Madriles, and all the Ilustraciones that had ever been published; here the low, broad, comfortable sofa and the capacious easy-chairs; here, on the sideboard, refreshments for the inner man—a bottle of sherry and some biscuits, or, in summer, fruits, which the boy ate with enjoyment; here, in a glass, the branch of fresh lilacs, or the pinks which he wore in his button-hole; here the earthen water jar exuding moisture from its sides, and the bottle of syrup of iron, and the Japanese fan, and the unfinished novel, with the marker between{8} the leaves, and the text-book, worn more by the ill-humor and displeasure with which it was handled than by use; and finally, the little fireplace that had so good a draught, which made up for the icy class-rooms, and the dilapidated courts and passages of the temple of Minerva. With what enjoyment did Rogelio go to warm himself by the fire before taking off his cloak when he came in from college, stretching out his hands, cold as icicles, to the blaze. The genial heat thawed his stiffened muscles, quickened his impoverished blood, and gave him strength to ask, with a comical pretense at scolding and coaxing entreaties mingled, for his breakfast, almost regretting the promptness with which it was served, since it left him a subject the less for his humorous jests. Before it had crossed the threshold of the door, Doña Aurora was already crying out:{9}

{7}

{8}

{9}

“Fausta! Pepa! Here is the señorito; bring the breakfast. Quick! Hurry! Child, your syrup of iron. Shall I count your bitter drops for you!”

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