The Quest by Baroja, Pío, 1872-1956, Goldberg, Isaac, 1887-1938

Vidal took the money and the ragdealer, laughing, took the package.

"The first guard we see we'll tell that you've got stolen goods in your sack," shouted Vidal to the ragdealer. The man with the sack got angry and gave chase to the trio.

"Hey there! Come back! Come back!" he bellowed.

"What do you want?"

"Give me my three pesetas and take your bundle."

"Nix. Give us a duro and we won't say a word."

"Like hell."

"Give us only two pesetas more."

"Here's one, you rascal."

Vidal seized the coin that the ragdealer threw at him, and, as none was sure of himself, they made off hurriedly. When they reached Dolores' house in Las Cambroneras, they were bathed in perspiration, exhausted.

They ordered a flask of wine from the tavern, "A rotten bungle we made of it, hang it all," grumbled Vidal.

After the wine was paid for there remained ten reales; this they divided among the three, receiving eighty centimos apiece. Vidal summed up the day's work with the remark that this committing robberies in out-of-the-way spots was all disadvantages and no advantages, for besides exposing oneself to the danger of being sent to the penitentiary almost for life and getting a beating and being chewed up by a moral dog, a fellow ran the risk of being wretchedly fooled.

CHAPTER V

"No use. We've got to get rid of that beastly Bizco. Every time I see him hate him more and he disgusts me more."

"Why?"

"Because he's a brute. Let him go off to his old fox, Dolores. You and I can go to the theatre every night."

"How?"

"With the claque. We don't have to pay. All we have to do is applaud when we get the signal."

This condition seemed to Manuel so easy to fulfil that he asked his cousin:

"But listen. How is it, then, that everybody doesn't go to the theatre like that?"

"Because they don't all know the head of the claque as I do."

And as a matter of fact they went to the Apollo. For the first few days all Manuel could do was think of the plays and the actresses. Vidal, with his superior manner in all things, learned the songs right away; Manuel secretly envied him.

Between the acts the members of the claque would adjourn to a tavern on Barquillo Street, varying this occasionally with a visit to another place on the Plaza, del Rey. This latter resort was the rendezvous of the claquers that worked in Price's Circus.

Almost all the legion of applauders were youngsters; a few of them worked in shops here and there; for the most part they were loafers and organgrinders who wound up by becoming supernumeraries, chorus men or ticket-speculators.

There were among them effeminate, clean-shaven types with a woman's face and a shrill voice.

At the entrance to the theatre Vidal and Manuel made the acquaintance of a group of girls, from thirteen to eighteen years of age, who wandered about Alcala Street approaching well-to-do pillars of the middle class; they pretended to be news-vendors and always had a copy of the _Heraldo_ with them.

Vidal cultivated the intimacy of the girls; they were almost all homely, but this did not interfere with his plans, which consisted of extending the radius of his activities and his knowledge.

"We must leave the suburbs and work our way toward the centre," said Vidal.