"
"At your service, then. My name is Alonso de Guzman Calderon y Tellez.
This same fellow that's talking to you now has been director of a
circus in America; I've travelled through all the countries and sailed
over every sea in the world; at present I'm adrift in a violent
tempest; at night I go from cafe to cafe with this phonograph, and the
next morning I carry around one of these betting apparatuses that
consists of an _Infiel_[1] Tower with a spiral. Underneath the
tower there's a space with a spring that shoots a little bone ball up
the spiral, and then the bone falls upon a board perforated with holes
and painted in different colours. That is my livelihood. I! Director
of an equestrian circus! This is what I've descended to; an assistant
to Tabuenca. What things come to pass in this world!"
[Footnote 1: i.e. Faithless. A pun on Eiffel.]
"I should like to ask you," interrupted Roberto, "if during your
residence in Cuco's hostelry you ever made the acquaintance of a
certain Rosita Buenavida, a circus acrobat."
"Rosita Buenavida! You say that her name was Rosita Buenavida?... No,
I don't recall.... I did have a Rosita in my company; but her name
wasn't Buenavida (i. e., Goodlife); she'd have been better named
Evil-life and evil habits, too."
"Perhaps she changed her name," said Roberto impatiently.
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