They were still dining on the goat's meat.
"That's what you ought to do," suggested Vidal. "Come with us. This is
the life of a lord! Why, listen here. The other day Juan el Burra and
El Arenero came upon a dead hog on the road to Las Yeserias. A
swineherd was on his way with a herd of them to the slaughter-house,
when they found out that the animal had died; the fellow left it
there, and Juan el Burra and El Arenero dragged it to their house,
quartered it, and we friends of his have been eating hog for more than
a week. I tell you, it's a lord's life!"
According to what Vidal said, all the thieves knew each other, even to
the most distant sections of the city. Their life was outside the pale
of society and an admirable one, indeed; today they were to meet at
the Four Roads, in three or four days at the Vallecas Bridge or at La
Guindelara; they helped each other.
Their radius of activities was a zone bounded by the extreme of the
Casa del Campo, where the inn of Agapito and the Alcorcon restaurants
were, as far as Los Carabancheles; from here, the banks of the
Abronigal, La Elipa, El Este, Las Ventas and La Conception as far as
La Prosperidad; then Tetuan as far as the Puerta de Hierro. In summer
they slept in yards and sheds of the suburbs.
The thieves of the city's centre were a better-dressed, more
aristocratic lot; each of these had his woman, whose earnings he
managed and who took good care of him.
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