“Las amas de los curas y los laureles
  Como nunca dan fruto siempre estan verdes.” [1]

[Footnote 1:  Priest’s housekeepers—­like laurels—­never have any fruit, because they are evergreens.]

It was this that ended the patience of Don Antolin; this insulting conjecture about himself and his niece that disturbed his miserly chastity.  He visited the cardinal to complain of the inhabitants of the cloister, but His Eminence, who lived in a perpetual rage, grew furious listening to him and very nearly thrashed him.  Why did he come to him with such tales?  For what reason had he been given any authority?  Was there nothing left of a man beneath his cassock?  He who was wanting in the good discipline of the house—­turn him out into the street at once!  More energy, and be careful never to trouble him again with such insignificant tales, otherwise the person who would be turned into the street would be Silver Stick himself.

Don Antolin felt a little braver after this interview, although he swore mentally never again to visit that terrible prelate.  He was determined to reassert his authority, by punishing the weakest, whom he considered as the origin of all these scandals.  The shoemaker should be expelled from the Claverias, as he was there through no other right but that his wife had been born there.  Mariquita, bewildered by her uncle’s energy, must needs speak to some one about these intentions, and so the news circulated through the cloister.

Don Antolin did not dare to move a step further, terrified by the silent unanimity with which the whole population rose against him.

The Tato looked at him with mocking and threatening eyes, in which Silver Stick could plainly read “Remember the knife”; but what terrified Don Antolin more than anything was the silence of the bell-ringer, and the savage and hostile glance with which he responded to his words.

Even the good Wooden Staff, Esteban, protested in his own way, saying quietly to Don Antolin: 

“Is it really true that you intend turning out the shoemaker?  You will do wrong, very wrong, for after all he is very poor, and his wife was born in the cloister.  These innovations always bring misfortune, Don Antolin.”

So the priest, finding he had no support, and seeing hostility on every side, put off his energetic resolutions till the following day, even reproving his niece when she threw his weakness in his face.

The Canon Obrero, from whom he had implored help, did not care to disturb the blessed peace of his existence by mixing himself up in the quarrels of the smaller people.  It was Silver Stick’s own affair; he could punish or expel any one he thought fit without fear of anybody.  But Don Antolin, dreading the responsibility that might accrue from energetic action, ended by delivering himself over to Gabriel and begging for his assistance.  That man was the one who wielded the real authority in the upper cloister; all those who had listened to him followed his advice blindly.