Thanks to these and other tactics, and countless acts of arbitrariness, the choleric ex-naval officer achieved his great object of avenging himself on his enemies. His strategy was chiefly exhibited in attacks where it hurt the most; that is to say, on their house property. If any member of the Club owned one or more houses in a street in which no friend of his own had any property, he ordered the architect of the corporation to level the road and make it lower, by which course the foundations of the houses were laid bare and the buildings were in danger of falling to the ground, to say nothing of the inconvenience of having to put ladders for ingress. Thus during the few months of his mayoralty there were more than twenty houses in Sarrio with the foundations exposed, and at other times he had the roads raised so that the houses were flooded when it rained.
Such freaks naturally excited a great commotion among Don Belinchon's partizans. Rabid diatribes appeared in "The Light," and incessant scenes took place at the municipal sessions. But Maza took it all quite quietly, and calmly pursued his urban reforms, receiving meanwhile the complaints of his victims with a cruel smile, and giving fierce, sarcastic replies to the speeches of the opposite party.
Marcones took Don Mateo into a room adjoining the sessional chamber. The people's gallery was too small to admit more than one decent-sized person; and, moreover, the disputes of those fighting cocks were of little interest to outsiders. The two notaries of the place were in friendly converse in the same room, Don Victor Varela and Sanjurjo; the first was a little old man, with prominent eyes and such a coarsely made wig that it looked like straw, and the other was a man of middle age with a grayish mustache, afflicted with lameness from his birth. They greeted our old man like a great friend, and after the manner of people who see each other every day. Indeed, there was nobody in the town who could help greeting Don Mateo.
"You are waiting for the meeting to be over, eh?"
"Yes, señor," returned one of the two men, in so abrupt and cold a tone that the old gentleman felt no desire to pursue the subject further.
He sought for another topic, and hit upon sport as one more congenial to the tastes of the depositaries of public trust. Both were ardent sportsmen after quails, woodcock, etc., but their love of coursing was extreme. Directly any leisure time was at their disposal the swift, innocent animals were subjected to a fearful martyrdom at the hands of these notaries of the corporation, actively seconded by half a dozen greyhounds, kept half starved to quicken their pace.