"If they don't give me anything more than a sheet," shrilled the hag,
twisting her blobber-lip, "I'll tell them to keep it for themselves.
The foxy creatures! ..."
"Oh, they've found you out, granny!" exclaimed one of the loafers
lying on the ground. "You're a greedy one, you are."
The bystanders applauded these words, which came from a
_zarzuela_, and the chap in the coachman's hat continued
explaining to Manuel the workings of La Doctrina.
"There are some men and women who enrol in two and even three
divisions so as to get all the charity they can," he went on. "Why,
we--my father and I--once enrolled in four divisions under four
different names.... And what a rumpus was raised! What a row we had
with the marchionesses!"
"And what did you want with all those sheets," Manuel asked him.
"Why! Sell 'em, of course. They re sold here at the very gate at two
_chules_ apiece."
"I'm going to buy one," said a coachman from a nearby hackstand,
approaching the group. "I'll give it a coating of linseed oil, then
varnish it and make me a cowled waterproof."
"But the marchionesses,--don't they see that these people sell their
gifts right away?"
"Much they see!"
To these idlers the whole business was nothing more than a pious
recreation of the religious ladies, of whom they spoke with
patronizing irony.
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