The clientele was certain—­people from the church, who had the devotees back of them and considered Don Esteban as one of their class, and farmers, many rich farmers.  The families of the country folk, whenever they heard any talk about smart men, always thought immediately of the notary from Valencia.  With religious veneration they saw him adjust his spectacles in order to read as an expert the bill of sale or dowry contract that his amanuenses had just drawn up.  It was written in Castilian and for the better understanding of his listeners he would read it, without the slightest hesitation, in Valencian.  What a man!...

Afterwards, while the contracting parties were signing it, the notary raising the little glass window at the front, would entertain the assembly with some local legends, always decent, without any illusions to the sins of the flesh, but always those in which the digestive organs figured with every degree of license.  The clients would roar with laughter, captivated by this funny eschatalogy, and would haggle less in the matter of fees.  Famous Don Esteban!...  Just for the pleasure of hearing his yarns they would have liked a legal paper drawn up every month.

The future destiny of the notarial crown prince was the object of many after-dinner conversations on the special days when the poet was an invited guest.

“What do you want to be?” Labarta asked his godson.

His mother’s supplicating glance seemed desperately to implore the little fellow:  “Say Archbishop, my king.”  For the good senora, her son could not make his debut in any other way than in a church career.  The notary always used to speak very positively from his own viewpoint, without consulting the interested party.  He would be an eminent jurisconsult; thousands of dollars were going to roll toward him as though they were pennies; he was going to figure in university solemnities in a cloak of crimson satin and an academic cap announcing from its multiple sides the tasseled glory of the doctorate.  The students in his lecture-room would listen to him most respectfully.  Who knew what the government of his country might not have in store for him!...

Ulysses interrupted these images of future grandeur: 

“I want to be a captain.”

The poet approved.  He felt the unreflective enthusiasm which all pacific and sedentary beings have for the plume and the sword.  At the mere sight of a uniform his soul always thrilled with the amorous tenderness of a child’s nurse when she finds herself courted by a soldier.

“Fine!” said Labarta.  “Captain of what?...  Of artillery?...  Of the staff?...”

A pause.

“No; captain of a ship.”

Don Esteban looked up at the roof, raising his hands in horror.  He well knew who was guilty of this ridiculous idea, the one who had put such absurd longings in his son’s head!

And he was thinking of his brother, the retired doctor, who was living in the paternal home over there in the Marina:—­an excellent man, but a little crazy, whom the people on the coast called the Dotor, and the poet Labarta had nicknamed the Triton.