Manuel thought that if in time he should become the owner of a little
house like Senor Custodio's, and of a cart and donkeys, and hens and a
dog, and find in addition a woman to love him, he would be one of the
almost happy men in this world.
CHAPTER VII
Senor Custodio's Ideas--La Justa, El Carnicerin, and El Conejo.
Senor Custodio was an intelligent fellow of natural gifts, very
observant and quick to take advantage of a situation. He could
neither read nor write, yet made notes and kept accounts; with
crosses and scratches of his own invention he devised a substitute
for writing, at least for the purposes of his own business.
Senor Custodio was exceedingly eager for knowledge, and if it
weren't that the notion struck him as ridiculous, he would have set
about learning how to read and write. In the afternoon, work done,
he would ask Manuel to read the newspapers and the illustrated
reviews that he picked up on the streets, and the ragdealer and his
wife listened with the utmost attention.
Senor Custodio had, too, several volumes of novels in serial form
that had been left behind by his daughter, and Manuel began to read
them aloud.
The comment of the ragdealer, who took this fiction for historic
truth, was always perspicacious and just, revelatory of an instinct
for reasoning and common sense.
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