Having taken all these precautions, the terrible practical joker of Lancia felt he was quite secure. With the exception of the three or four friends who helped him to persuade Don Santos, nobody knew about his plot. But the Sunday afternoon preceding the event, he and Manuel Antonio went round and told people about the joke, and said that they had better be at the Café Marañón the next day if they wanted to see it out. In the provinces, where there are not many amusements, these practical jokes are made quite a business, and much time and thought are given to their conception and organisation.
The youths of Lancia were delighted at Paco's project, for it presented especial attraction, the victim not being a poor fellow whom they might feel for, but a rich man; and in the depth of every heart there is always a grain of hatred for any one who has much money. So the news got bruited about, and on the following day there were more than fifty young fellows at the Café Marañón. But they did not make themselves conspicuous until Garnet appeared. The café was situated on a first floor (for the ground floors were never used at that time for such a purpose) in the Calle de Altavilla, almost opposite Don Juan Estrada-Rosa's house, which was large and sumptuous, although not so much so as the one that Don Santos had recently built, and that where the café was, was old and dilapidated. The resort of customers was a room, where there was a billiard-table, and two little side rooms furnished with little wooden tables for refreshment, all dirty, murky and shabby. How different were those times to the magnificent Café Britanico of today in the same street, with marble tables, colossal mirrors and gilded columns like the finest in Madrid!
Spying through the little windows the gay assembly of youths, eager for excitement, saw Garnet pass by correctly dressed, balancing his colossal body on legs that looked too small for it. They saw him enter Estrada-Rosa's house, and heard the sound of the door being shut upon him. Nothing more was seen, but the windows of the café were simultaneously opened and filled. Those who could find no place got up on seats behind their companions. Every eye was fixed on the opposite door, and thus they waited for a quarter of an hour. At the end of that time the purple face of Garnet reappeared. It was indeed a fearful sight. It looked just as if the man had been nearly strangled, and his ears were the colour of blood. A perfect storm of coughs, shouts and howls greeted his appearance. The Indian turned his head and gave an astonished look at the excited crowd who were laughing for some unknown reason at him. But he was not long before he saw that he was the victim of a practical joke. His eyes glared fiercely round, and he burst out in a fit of intolerable rage: