by the young women’s parents. It was that same Araquil who had come to old General Garrido to tell the tale of his aspirations. A lively youth, this youngster was, always ready for some mad frolic; first in the game of tennis, strong as a horse and agile as a monkey, devil-may-care, prone to fisticuffs; killing his bulls in their impromptu novilladas as deftly as a professional espada and quite willing to get a broken head or a perforated hide upon any pretext, or upon none at all, for that matter. And bearing himself like a king, withal, with the air of a cavalier and a chin that was always freshly shaven, with the form of a Hercules and the hand of a woman. In addition to all this he had not a sou to his name, living from hand to mouth, now on the stakes of a tennis-match won from the lads of Bilbao or Tolosa, now on the proceeds of a bet made with the toreros, whom he braved–oh! so arrogantly!–in the bull-ring and in the combat with knives. At Saint Sebastian one day, when the bewildered cuadrilla could not dispose of the bull, a furious black brute with flanks specked with great spots of red foam, slavering at the mouth with blood and froth, Juan Araquil begins to hiss, and the people in the circus, spectators and toreros, shout: ‘Well, then, into the ring with you, into the ring!’ Ah! Juan did not hesitate, sir. He rises, he leaps over the railing, he takes from the astounded espada–perhaps he was pleased with the prospect of soon seeing this great fool impaled on the bull’s horns–he takes the short-handled sword, you know, he takes it like that, and planting himself squarely before the animal, he looks him in the face, he laughs in his nostrils, he makes a forward thrust with the point,–that way,–
