They climbed the Calle Nicaragua, always between the parallel swift streams, past the school with the grey tombstones and the swing like a gallows, past high mysterious walls, and hedges intertwined with crimson flowers, among which marmalade-colored birds were trapezing, crying raucously. Hugh felt glad of his drinks now, remembering from his boyhood how the last day of the holidays was always worse if you went anywhere, how then time, that one had hoped to bemuse, would at any moment begin to glide after you like a shark following a swimmer.—¡Box! said an advertisement. Arena Tomalín. El Balón vs. El Redondillo. The Balloon vs. the Bouncing Ball—was that? Domingo . . . But that was for Sunday; while they were only going to a bullthrowing, a purpose in life whose object was not even worth
