After this accident he never again returned to his master's shop. He knew now what bulls were, and his wound only served to increase his boldness. He would be a torero; and nothing but a torero! The Señora Angustias abandoned all her projects of correction, judging them to be useless. She tried to ignore her son's existence. When he arrived home at night, at the time his mother and sister were supping together, they gave him his food in silence, intending to crush him with their contempt, but this in no way interfered with his appetite. If he arrived late, they did not even keep a scrap of bread for him, and he was obliged to go out again, as empty as he had come in.
He was one of the evening promenaders in the Alameda de Hercules, with other vicious-eyed lads, a confused mixture of apprentices, criminals, and toreros. The neighbours met him sometimes in the streets talking to young gentlemen whose airs made the women laugh, or grave caballeros to whom slander gave feminine nicknames. Sometimes he would sell newspapers, or during the great festivals of Holy Week he would sell packets of caramels in the Plaza de San Francisco. At the time of the fair, he would loiter about the hotels waiting for an "Englishman," because for him all travellers were English, hoping to be engaged as guide.
"Milord!... I am a torero!" ... he would say, seeing a foreign figure, as if this professional qualification was an undeniable recommendation to strangers.
In order to establish his identity, he would take off his cap, letting the pigtail fall down behind, the long lock of hair which as a rule he wore rolled up on the top of his head.
His companion in wretchedness was Chiripa, a lad of the same age, small of body and malicious of eye. He had neither father nor mother, and had wandered about Seville ever since he could remember anything. He exercised over Juanillo all the influence of greater experience. He had one cheek scarred by a bull's horn, and this visible wound the Zapaterin considered greatly superior to his invisible one.
When at the door of an hotel some lady, bitten by the idea of "local colour," spoke with the young toreros, admired their pig-tails, listened to the stories of their exploits, and ended by giving them some money, Chiripa would say in a whining voice.