"
The woman pointed out the shed.
"He told me also," added the boy, "to say that you should give me
something to eat."
"I know you, you foxy creature," mumbled the old woman. And after
grumbling for a long time and waiting for Manuel to dump out the
contents of the cart, she gave him a slice of bread and a piece of
cheese.
The woman unharnessed the two mules and released the dog, who began to
bark and play with contentment; he snapped playfully at the mules, one
black and the other a silvery grey, who turned their eyes upon him and
showed their teeth; desperately he gave chase to a white cat with a
tail that bristled like a feather-duster, then approached Manuel, who,
seated in the sun, was nibbling at his bit of cheese and his slice of
bread, waiting for something. They both had lunch.
Manuel walked around the dwelling and looked it over. One of its
narrow sides was composed of two bathing-houses.
These two bathing-houses were not joined, but left between them a
space filled in by a rusty iron door such as is used to fasten shops.
The two longer walls of the ragdealer's hovel were formed of stakes
paid with pitch, and the wall opposite to that built of the
bathing-houses was constructed of thick, irregular rocks and curved
outward with a swelling like that of a church presbytery.
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