He took the beaker that was handed him and drank a deep draught. But his mother went on weeping, her eyes still gazing at the tavern-boat down the shore. The Rector showed some signs of irritation. "Still bawling, eh! And this is the time to talk of funerals! See, ma, you ought to have made me a bishop, then there'd be no cause for whining from the women folks. Honest, and work hard, say I, and trust to luck! That's the sailor's creed! The sea? The sea gives us everything. It raises us when we are little. And it feeds us when we're grown up. We're always asking something of the sea! Well, we have to take a storm now and then, along with the big runs. Besides, somebody's got to risk his skin, if folks are going to have fish to eat. That somebody is me. Out to sea I go, as I've always gone. And that's the end of that! And now, enough of this whimpering business, what do you say, ma? Here's to _Flor de Mayo_! Here's to 'Mayflower.' _Cristo!_ another mug, boys, on me, on me! Drink her down, drink her down, till every mother's son of you is drunk. And I'll feel insulted if they don't come down and get you to-night because you can't walk home, and find you all rooting in the sand here like so many grunting hogs!"
Pascualo was on his way home from an afternoon in Valencia; but on reaching the Glorieta, he stopped in front of the Old Customs House.
It was six o'clock. The sun was tinting the enormous front of the building an orange gold, softening the colors of the greenish black smudge that the rain had left on the mansard windows. The statue of Charles II seemed to be melting into the mellow bluish transparency of the light-filled atmosphere. Through the gratings drifted the hum of a busy hive--voices calling, songs coming from a distance, the metallic click of scissors as the workers picked them up or let them fall.
Out through the big entrance the girls from the nearest floors were beginning to pour in animate throng--a horde of Indian shawls, a medley of strong arms with sleeves rolled above the elbow, an army of lunch-boxes slung over shoulders, a pitter-patter of feet, hopping in short quick steps like sparrows, a hub-bub of good-nights, of greetings, of parting gibes. The promenade for the guards, where a few drinking fountains were the only obstructions, was one seething mass of feminine youth.