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Many a Spanish gang comes entirely from the same town, notably Salamanca or Avila. I set them to staring and chattering by some simple remark about their birthplace: "Fine view from the Paseo del Rastro, eh?" "Does the puente romano still cross the river?" But I had soon to cease such personalities, for picks and shovels lay idle as long as I remained in sight and Uncle Sam was the loser.
One night in the early part of November Manuel stumbled against El Bizco at the entrance to a cafe on La Cabecera del Rastro; the cross-eyed ragamuffin was bent over, almost naked, his arms crossed against his chest, barefoot; he presented a painful picture of poverty and cold. Dolores La Escandalosa had left him for another. "Where can we go to sleep?" Manuel asked him.
What a pity that they were both so well known. But what they would do, at least, was to disguise themselves some morning and go house-hunting in some low quarter, like the Rastro, as if they were a newly married couple. No one would recognize them in that part of Madrid. Agreed, master? And the master approved of everything.
The cross-eyed bully did not deign to make any reply. The three chums went to the square that faces Toledo bridge; near by, at a stand owned by Garatusa, a penitentiary graduate who ran a "fence" for thieves and didn't lose any money at it, they had a drink and then, walking along Ocho Hilos Avenue they came to the Ronda de Toledo. The vicinity of El Rastro was thronged with Sunday crowds.
We subsequently heard that the wild Indians had escaped into the great Pampas, and from some cause the track had been missed. One glance at the rastro tells these people a whole history.
He had learned that his sweetheart and her mother were thinking of going to the kermesse, so he procured a pair of tickets and told Manuel that they two would attend. So it happened. They went, on a terribly hot August night; a dense, turbid vapour filled all the streets in the vicinity of the Rastro, which were decorated and illuminated with Venetian lanterns.
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