Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 1.djvu/116

38 girls are coming back to work.' You must know, sir, that there are quite four or five hundred women employed in the factory. They roll the cigars in a great room into which no man can go without a permit from the Veintiquatro, because when the weather is hot they make themselves at home, especially the young ones. When the work-girls come back after their dinner, numbers of young men go down to see them pass by, and talk all sorts of nonsense to them. Very few of those young ladies will refuse a silk mantilla, and men who care for that sort of sport have nothing to do but bend down and pick their fish up. While the others watched the girls go by, I stayed on my bench near the door. I was a young fellow then—my heart was still in my own country, and I didn't believe in any pretty girls who hadn't blue skirts and long plaits of hair falling on their shoulders. And besides, I was rather afraid of the Andalusian women. I had not got used to their ways yet; they were always jeering one—never spoke a single word of sense. So I was sitting with my nose down upon my chain, when I heard some bystanders say, 'Here comes the gitanella!'