This "fence," which profited by the oversight of some base officer
(for the police lists did not bother with these things), was presided
over by a fellow called Uncle Perquique. He spent his whole life
passing to and fro in front of his establishment. To deceive the
municipal guard he sold shoe-laces and bargains that came from the
old-clothes shop he conducted.
In the spring this fellow would don a cook's white cap and cry out his
tarts with a word that he scarcely pronounced and which he liked to
alter constantly. Sometimes the word seemed to be Perquique!
Perquique! but at once it would change sound and be transformed into
Perqueque or Parquique, and these phonetic modifications were extended
to infinity.
The origin of this word Perquique, which cannot be found in the
dictionary, was as follows: The cream tarts sold by the man in the
white cap brought five centimos apiece and he would cry "_A perra
chica! A perra Chica!_ Only five pesetas apiece! A five-peseta
piece!" As a result of his lazy enunciation he suppressed the first A
and converted the other two into E, thus transforming his cry into
"_Perre chique! Perre chique!_" Later, _Perre chique_ turned
into _Perquique._
The "fence" guard, a jolly soul, was a specialist in crying wares; he
shaded his cries most artistically; he would go from the highest notes
to the lowest or vice versa.
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