“I will do it for you in a line,” I said, sharply.  “Your father lost his temper, and tried bullying the bull (no joke), and you winked at the animal.  He knew you, and stood still.  The bull went for your father—­you for the bull.  Drive on!”

“Let me tell you then, how I prepared myself for the Ring by practising on a dummy bull.—­I had no difficulty in sticking pins into it—­it was quite calm.  Then I tried the same game on a sheep, and got knocked down for my pains!  One of my monkey tricks!  Then I got acquainted with some Irish bulls, and letting them off on my friends got several thumps on the head.”

“No,” I interrupted him sternly, “get on with your story.”

“Well, at length I met JUAN at the beginning of May.”

“Make it first of April,” I said, severely.

“He was the Toreador out of Carmen, to put it shortly,” he continued, not deigning to notice my interruption—­“and he introduced me to the bull-fight.  Of course I had to pay my footing (a very uncertain one) in duros, or hard cash.  Then every morning I ate a chuto (a sort of small cabbage) at my dinner—­then they tried me as a capa, to test (so they said) my capability.  The chief patron was the Duke of MEDICINA, who in early youth had been a doctor—­hence his title—­and I shall never forget his first greeting.”

“Your story!” I interrupted, sternly, finding that the old man was once more becoming tedious.

“I returned,” replied the dotard, with a senile chuckle, “that he was wrong.  His answer was beyond my meaning—­he muttered something about ‘mutton and capa sauce.’  I was engaged,” continued the dotard, with a feeble grin, “as a capa for seventy years certain, with an annual benefit once in four years, with a salary of forty-two thousand a year—­which in those days seemed to me to be a small fortune.”

[Illustration:  “They made an Idol of me.”]

“They are wretchedly paid in Spain,” I observed.

“They are,” he acquiesced.  “I was paid a week in advance, and have lived upon the proceeds ever since.  And now my life was indeed a merry one.  I was free of the Ring.  Now I played the cornet in the Brassos Banderillos, and my performance pleased the aficionados (or advertising agents) so well, that my name was known throughout the Peninsula.”

“Well,” once more I interrupted, “I suppose you met a Spanish beauty, fell in love with her, and was cut out by a party of the name of JUAN?”

“However do you think of such clever things?” asked the old man, in a tone of extreme astonishment.  “But you are right.  I placed CLEMENCIA one day in the pal co (or part reserved for friends), and the bull tossed me.  Ah, she trampled upon me—­treated me like a mat.  But I loved her and adored myself.  Hence I was called a ‘Mat-Adorer.’  I repeat, the bull tossed me, and I did not come down heads.”

“Go on.”