goatskin breeches with the hair outside, he sat near the tail of his own smart mule, his great hat turned
against the sun, an expression of blissful vacancy on his long face, humming day after day a love-song
in a plaintive key, or, without a change of expression, letting out a yell at his small tropilla in front. A
round little guitar hung high up on his back; and there was a place scooped out artistically in the wood
of one of his packsaddles where a tightly rolled piece of paper could be slipped in, the wooden plug
replaced, and the coarse canvas nailed on again. When in Sulaco it was his practice to smoke and
doze all day long (as though he had no care in the world) on a stone bench outside the doorway of the
Casa Gould and facing the windows of the Avellanos house. Years and years ago his mother had been
chief laundry-woman in that family--very accomplished in the matter of clear-starching. He himself had
been born on one of their haciendas. His name was Bonifacio, and Don Jose, crossing the street about
five o'clock to call on Dona Emilia, always acknowledged his humble salute by some movement of hand
or head. The porters of both houses conversed lazily with him in tones of grave intimacy. His evenings
he devoted to gambling and to calls in a spirit of generous festivity upon the peyne d'oro girls in the
more remote side-streets of the town. But he, too, was a discreet man.