in the parish to almost double."

"But you will allow me--"

"But that isn't all. I stayed in the town of San Diego twenty years
and it has been only a few months since I left it."

Here he showed signs of chagrin.

"Twenty years, no one can deny, are more than sufficient
to get acquainted with a town. San Diego has a population of six
thousand souls and I knew every inhabitant as well as if I had
been his mother and wet-nurse. I knew in which foot this one was
lame, where the shoe pinched that one, who was courting that girl,
what affairs she had had and with whom, who was the real father of
the child, and so on--for I was the confessor of every last one,
and they took care not to fail in their duty. Our host, Santiago,
will tell you whether I am speaking the truth, for he has a lot of
land there and that was where we first became friends. Well then,
you may see what the Indian is: when I left I was escorted by only
a few old women and some of the tertiary brethren--and that after
I had been there twenty years!"

"But I don't see what that has to do with the abolition of the tobacco
monopoly," [21] ventured the rubicund youth, taking advantage of the
Franciscan's pausing to drink a glass of sherry.

Fray Damaso was so greatly surprised that he nearly let his glass
fall. He remained for a moment staring fixedly at the young man.