Vejarruco, although his real name was Jose Esteban Romero.  Caballuco turned back, tempted by the agreeable society of these persons, who were old and intimate friends of his, and accompanied them to Dona Perfecta’s house.  This took place, according to the most reliable accounts, at nightfall, and two days after the day on which Dona Perfecta and Pinzon held the conversation which those who have read the preceding chapter will have seen recorded there.  The great Ramos stopped for a moment to give Librada certain messages of trifling importance, which a neighbor had confided to his good memory, and when he entered the dining-room he found the three before-mentioned countrymen and Senor Licurgo, who by a singular coincidence was also there, conversing about domestic matters and the crops.  The Senora was in a detestable humor; she found fault with every thing, and scolded them harshly for the drought of the heavens and the barrenness of the earth, phenomena for which they, poor men! were in no wise to blame.  The Penitentiary was also present.  When Caballuco entered, the good canon saluted him affectionately and motioned him to a seat beside himself.

“Here is the individual,” said the mistress of the house disdainfully.  “It seems impossible that a man of such little account should be so much talked about.  Tell me, Caballuco, is it true that one of the soldiers slapped you on the face this morning?”

“Me! me!” said the Centaur, rising indignantly, as if he had received the grossest insult.

“That is what they say,” said Dona Perfecta.  “Is it not true?  I believed it; for any one who thinks so little of himself—­they might spit in your face and you would think yourself honored with the saliva of the soldiers.”

“Senora!” vociferated Ramos with energy, “saving the respect which I owe you, who are my mother, my mistress, my queen—­saving the respect, I say, which I owe to the person who has given me all that I possess—­saving the respect—­”

“Well?  One would think you were going to say something.”

“I say then, that saving the respect, that about the slap is a slander,” he ended, expressing himself with extraordinary difficulty.  “My affairs are in every one’s mouth—­whether I come in or whether I go out, where I am going and where I have come from—­and why?  All because they want to make me a tool to raise the country.  Pedro is contented in his own house, ladies and gentlemen.  The troops have come?  Bad! but what are we going to do about it?  The alcalde and the secretary and the judge have been removed from office?  Very bad!  I wish the very stones of Orbajosa might rise up against them; but I have given my word to the governor, and up to the present—–­”

He scratched his head, gathered his gloomy brows in a frown, and with ever-increasing difficulty of speech continued: 

“I may be brutal, disagreeable, ignorant, quarrelsome, obstinate, and every thing else you choose, but in honor I yield to no one.”