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The calesero picks his way carefully; the carriage tips, jolts, and tumbles; the centre of gravity appears to be nowhere. The breeze dies away; the vertical sun seems to pin us through the head; we get drowsy, and dream of an uneasy sea of stones, whose harsh waves induce headache, if not seasickness.
A number of carriages were there before them, the occupants mostly eating ices, and the café was being rapidly filled. Waiting keen-eyed at the entrance, they saw the volante with La Clavel before it drew up, and the calesero had scarcely dismounted from his horse when the dancer was offered her choice of the available sweets.
One might think, at first, that these narrow boots were as uncomfortable to the calesero as the Scottish instrument of torture of that name; but his little swagger when he is down, and his freedom in kicking when he is up, show that he has ample room in them. Very jolly groups of Spanish artisans does one see in the open shops at noon, gathered around a table.
A number of negroes, putting their means together, had commissioned a ticket-broker to purchase and hold for them a certain ticket. After long waiting and paying up, news came to Matanzas that the ticket had drawn the $100,000 prize. The owners of the negroes were in despair at this intelligence. "Now my cook will buy himself," says one; "my calesero will be free," says another; and so on.
He hesitated, uncertain of the wisdom of such a proceeding, when her hand again stole into his. What, anyhow, in the face of that direct request, could he do but agree? They must have, she proceeded, since he hadn't a private equipage, the newest quitrin he could procure, and a calesero more brilliant than any they should pass on the Calzada de la Reina.
The older woman was assisted into the leather body of the quitrin, Pilar settled lightly in the niña bonita, Charles mounted to the third place, the calesero swung up on the horse outside the shafts, and they rattled smartly into the Queen's Drive.
At eleven o'clock, on a very warm morning, this vehicle made its appearance at the door of the Ensor House, with Roque in the saddle, Roque with that mysterious calesero face of his, knowing everything, but volunteering nothing until the word of command. Don Antonito, he tells us, has gone before us on horseback; we mount the volante, and follow.
The other angel of deliverance is the volante, with its tireless horses and calesero, who seems fitted and screwed to the saddle, which he never leaves. He does not even turn his head for orders. His senses are in the back of his head, or wherever his mistress pleases. "José, calle de la muralla, esquina á los oficios," and the black machine moves on, without look, word, or sign of intelligence.
They were, for the most part, quitrins, drawn with two horses, one outside the shafts ridden by a calesero in crimson velvet laced with gold and a glazed hat. The quitrins had two wheels, a leather hood strapped back, and held three passengers by means of a small additional seat, called, Andrés explained, la niña bonita, where the prettiest woman was invariably placed.
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