In front of the chair was a wooden table spotted with ink stains and whittled and carved with inscriptions and initials like the tables in the German taverns frequented by students.

Benches and broken chairs completed the furniture.
This is the hall of council, of judgment, and of torture, wherein are now gathered the officials of the town and its dependent villages.

The faction of old men does not mix with that of the youths, for they are mutually hostile.

They represent respectively the conservative and the liberal parties, save that their disputes assume in the towns an extreme character.
"The conduct of the gobernadorcillo fills me with distrust," Don Filipo, the teniente-mayor and leader of the liberal faction, was saying to his friends.

"It was a deep-laid scheme, this thing of putting off the discussion of expenses until the eleventh hour.