"He's the best one in the family; the only Brull with more brains than crookedness."
Nothing too small for Cupido to notice ever happened in Alcira. Every weakness, every foible of the city's celebrities was made public by him in his barbershop, to the delight of the Opposition, whose members gathered there to read their party organ. The gentlemen of the _Ayuntamiento_ feared the barber more than any ten newspapers combined, and whenever some famous Conservative minister referred in parliament to a "revolutionary hydra" or a "hotbed of anarchy," they pictured to themselves a barbershop like that of Cupido, but much larger perhaps, scattering a poisonous atmosphere of cruel gibe and perverse effrontery all through the nation.
The barber was inevitably on hand where anything was going on. It might be at the very end of the suburbs, or away out in the country. In a few moments Cupido would put in an appearance to learn all about it, give advice to those who might need it, arbitrate between disputants and afterward tell the whole story with a thousand embellishments.
He had plenty of time on his hands for leading such a life. Two young fellows, as crazy as their employer, tended shop. Cupido paid them with music-lessons and meals--better or worse these latter, according to the day's receipts, which were divided fraternally among the three. And if the "boss" sometimes astonished the city by going out for a walk in midwinter in a suit of white duck, they, not to be outdone, would shave off their hair and eyebrows and show heads as smooth as billiard-balls behind the shop windows, to the great commotion of the city, which would flock _en masse_ to see "Cupido's Chinamen."
A flood was always a great day for the barber. He closed shop and planted himself out on a bridge, oblivious to wind and rain, haranguing the crowds of spectators, terrifying the stupid with his exaggerations and inventions, and announcing hair-raising news which he asserted he had just received from the Governor by telegraph, and according to which, in two hours, there would not be a cellar-hole left of the place. Even the miracle-working San Bernardo would be washed into the sea!
When Rafael found him upon the bridge that night, after the procession, Cupido was on the point of coming to blows with several rustics, who had grown indignant at his heresies.
