"I perceive in the arms of sleep," resumed the Cripple, "a man whom I esteem, and who is also attached devotedly to me,--a being formed in my own mould. He is an old bachelor, who idolises the fair sex. You cannot speak to him of a pretty woman, without remarking the delight with which he hears you; if you say that her mouth is small, her lips rubies, her teeth pearls, her cheeks roses on an alabaster vase; in a word, if you paint her in detail, at every stroke he sighs and lifts his eyes, and is visibly excited by his voluptuous imagination. Only two days ago, passing the shop of a ladies' shoemaker, he stopped to look with admiration on a pair of diminutive slippers which were there exposed. After contemplating them for some time, with more attention than they deserved, he exclaimed with a languishing air, to a cavalier who accompanied him: 'Ah! my friend; there now are slippers which enchant my soul! what darling feet for which they were made! I look on
them with too much interest: let us away! the very atmosphere around this place is dangerous.'"
[Illustration: the old bachelor admires the diminutive slippers]
"We may mark that gentleman with black, at all events," said Leandro Perez. "We may indeed," replied the Devil; "and you may tar his nearest neighbour with the same brush, while you are about it--an original of an auditor, who, because he keeps a carriage, blushes whenever he is obliged to put his foot into a public vehicle. He again may be worthily paired with one of his own relations, a wealthy dignitary of the church here, who almost always rides in a hired coach, in order to save two very neat ones, and four splendid mules, which he keeps in his stables.
"In the immediate neighbourhood of the auditor and our amatory bachelor, I discover a man to whom, without injustice, no one could deny his title to a strait waistcoat. There he is--a cavalier of sixty, making love to a damsel of sixteen. He visits her daily, and thinks to win her affections by a recital of the conquests of his youth; he hopes that she will love him now for the charms of which he formerly could boast.
[Illustration: the old cavalier wooing the young girl]
"We may place in the same category with the aged swain, another who is sleeping about ten paces from us--a French count, who came to Madrid to see the court of Spain. This old gentleman, who is nearly seventy years of age, shone with great lustre in the court of his own sovereign, fifty years ago; he was indeed perfectly the rage; all the world envying his manly form, his gallant deportment, and above all the exquisite taste which he displayed in his apparel. He scrupulously preserved the dresses so much admired, and has continued to wear them on all occasions despite the changes of fashion, which in Paris occur every day. What, however, is most amusing in the matter is, that he fancies himself at this time as graceful and attractive as in the days of his youth."