"Come, come, go your way."
"Don't be spiteful to me, Manolita, but forgive me!"
"That's a great note! I am not a priest to grant absolution!"
"But you can impose penance."
"No such thing! If I did, though, it would be with the dipper in such a
way that you would not care to show your ugly phiz around here again."
"That could not be! I might lose my nose, but I could not lose my desire
to see you; never!"
The _chula_, during this exchange of compliments, was becoming softened.
Enrique, after respectfully asking permission, was allowed to enter the
shop, and sit down to drink a tumbler of milk.
And in good fellowship and sociability, the lieutenant began to flirt
with her in fine style, and the girl to answer him curtly, though she
could not help feeling that it was rather good fun to be courted by a
military gentleman.[30]
Enrique made himself liked by his frank and optimistic disposition.
Manolita, finding him just as ugly as before, began to be attracted
toward him.
"Why not tell the truth?" she said; "you are homely, but you have a
_something_ ... come now!... peculiar."
"Yes, I know that," responded the lieutenant, gravely; "I am homely, but
graceful."
"No, you aren't graceful either!" exclaimed the _chula_, laughing.
"Well, I am beginning to get into your good graces, if I am not
graceful."
"That's so."
After they had got deeply interested in conversation, suddenly heavy and
clattering steps were heard in the back shop, and a man, or, more
accurately speaking, a one-eyed giant, appeared at the rear door in his
shirt-sleeves, in gray woollen trousers, a red belt, and a flat Biscayan
cap; his face was as ugly and frightful as that of his ancestors, the
Cyclops.
After casting a grim look around the room, without seeing Enrique, or
apparently not seeing him, he uttered several grunts, staggered toward
the counter, and fixing his vitreous, angry eye on the polished silk hat
which the lieutenant had laid on it, he picked it up gingerly in his
monstrous hands, examined it curiously, like a naturalist who has just
stumbled upon some new zooephyte, while something that tried to be a
smile, but succeeded in being only a horrible grimace, vexed his thick,
livid lips.
"Oj, oj, oj.... Trrr, trrr, trr.... Is there a marquis in my shop? blast
him!"
And he flung another glance around the room without having any objective
point for it, as though there were no living beings in it.
Then, with perfect calmness and care, as though he were performing one
of the most delicate operations of art, he crushed the hat between his
hands until he had made it as flat as a pancake; and having done this,
he flung it through the door into the middle of the street with no less
delicacy and care.
Enrique suddenly grew as red as a pepper; then instantly turned pale; he
leaped hastily from his seat like a new David, full of the impulse to
meet the Goliath in battle; but Manolita restrained him, making no end
of expressive signs going to show that the giant was not at heart a
stern man. Then Enrique left the shop, a very disgusted man.
"Father, the hat belonged to this gent, and he was a customer."
"Hold your tongue, you! Do you understand?"
And in order to reinforce the significance of his wish, he gave the girl
a slap.
But Enrique heard neither the daughter's amiable explanation nor the
father's gentle reply; all he thought of was to straighten out and
arrange his hat.
"Catch me coming to this pigsty of a shop again!" he exclaimed,
furiously clapping his hat on his head, and sweeping like the north wind
up the street in search of a hatter.