While he was thus speaking, the glass door which led from the dining-room into the garden was obscured by the interposition between it and the light of a dark body.  The glasses of a pair of spectacles, catching a sunbeam, sent forth a fugitive gleam; the latch creaked, the door opened, and the Penitentiary gravely entered the room.  He saluted those present, taking off his broad-brimmed hat and bowing until its brim touched the floor.

“It is the Senor Penitentiary, of our holy cathedral,” said Dona Perfecta:  “a person whom we all esteem greatly, and whose friend you will, I hope, be.  Take a seat, Senor Don Inocencio.”

Pepe shook hands with the venerable canon, and both sat down.

“If you are accustomed to smoke after meals, pray do so,” said Dona Perfecta amiably; “and the Senor Penitentiary also.”

The worthy Don Inocencio drew from under his cassock a large leather cigar-case, which showed unmistakable signs of long use, opened it, and took from it two long cigarettes, one of which he offered to our friend.  Rosario took a match from a little leaf-shaped matchbox, which the Spaniards ironically call a wagon, and the engineer and the canon were soon puffing their smoke over each other.

“And what does Senor Don Jose think of our dear city of Orbajosa?” asked the canon, shutting his left eye tightly, according to his habit when he smoked.

“I have not yet been able to form an idea of the town,” said Pepe.  “From the little I have seen of it, however, I think that half a dozen large capitalists disposed to invest their money here, a pair of intelligent heads to direct the work of renovating the place, and a couple of thousands of active hands to carry it out, would not be a bad thing for Orbajosa.  Coming from the entrance to the town to the door of this house, I saw more than a hundred beggars.  The greater part of them are healthy, and even robust men.  It is a pitiable army, the sight of which oppresses the heart.”

“That is what charity is for,” declared Don Inocencio.  “Apart from that, Orbajosa is not a poor town.  You are already aware that the best garlic in all Spain is produced here.  There are more than twenty rich families living among us.”

“It is true,” said Dona Perfecta, “that the last few years have been wretched, owing to the drought; but even so, the granaries are not empty, and several thousands of strings of garlic were recently carried to market.”

“During the many years that I have lived in Orbajosa,” said the priest, with a frown, “I have seen innumerable persons come here from the capital, some brought by the electoral hurly-burly, others to visit some abandoned site, or to see the antiquities of the cathedral, and they all talk to us about the English ploughs and threshing-machines and water-power and banks, and I don’t know how many other absurdities.  The burden of their song is that this place is very backward, and that it could be improved.  Let