to a club in the suburbs, dances very well, rides a bicycle, thrums the guitar, kills bullocks (in the ring), gets drunk once in a while, fights if need be, applies nicknames that stick, tells jokes, is a crack marksman, and sleeps away his day. Yet every drawing-room opens its doors to him, because he belongs to good family.
Next came Vizconde de Tal. The viscount is a bachelor, retired diplomat, member of all the Catholic clubs, subscriber to all the "smart" lectures, a monkish literatus—that is to say, the author of verses to Saint Paul, the first hermit, and to the blessed Maria Ana de Jesus; the author also of a life of Santo Domingo de la Calzada, patron saint of Calahorra, as well as of the glories of the Inquisition—works crowned by the Spanish Academy, which keeps him in pickle, so to speak, for the next vacant seat. He is twenty-six years of age, and without a copper.
Third on the list we find Don Fidel Hermosilla, a retired treasury clerk and a man of order, who injured his prospects by falling in love with somebody beneath him, but ahead of him in spending his salary—a very respectable-looking man, with gold-rimmed spectacles and a cross embroidered on his dress coat, which fits him very neatly. He is said to get his living now from omber; but some people do not believe it.
Finally came Conde del An, a very lively young fellow, formerly a clerk in the Lottery Office, who, having married a countess, got to be called a count—a title that he has retained, permitting folks to speak of him just as if he
