This was the dining-room and led to
the kitchen, which in turn gave access to a narrow, very filthy patio
with a fountain. At the other side of the patio were the bedrooms of
Uncle Patas, his wife and his sister-in-law.
Manuel's sleeping quarters were a straw-bed and a couple of old cloaks
behind the counter. Here, especially at night, it reeked of rotten
cabbage: but what bothered Manuel even more was the getting up at
dawn, when the watchman struck two or three blows with his pike upon
the door of the store.
They sold something in the shop,--enough to live on and no more. In
this hovel Uncle Patas had saved up a fortune centimo by centimo.
Uncle Patas' history was really interesting. Manuel had learned it
from the gossip of the men who delivered the bread and from the boys
in the other stores.
Uncle Patas had come to Madrid from a hamlet of Lugo, at the age of
fifteen, in search of a living. Within twenty years, by dint of
unbelievable economies, he had hoarded up from his wages in a bakery
some three or four thousand pesetas, and with this capital he
established a little grocery. His wife stood behind the counter while
he continued to work in the bakery and hoard his earnings. When his
son grew up he assigned to the boy the running of a tavern and then of
a pawnbroker-shop. It was during this prosperous epoch that Uncle
Patas' wife died, and the man, now a widower, wishing to taste the
sweets of life, which had thus far proved so fruitless, married again
despite his fifty-odd years; the bride, a lass that came from his own
province, was only twenty and her sole object in marrying was to
change from servant to mistress.
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