He is usually a thin, lithe man, somewhat of the figure of those northerners who supply the bull-ring with Banderilleros.

He arrives in the early morning with a sheathe knife at his waist, a packet of cigarettes in his jacket pocket and two light sticks under his arm.

All he asks is a courtyard and the sunshine that Heaven gives him.
In a moment he deftly cuts the stitches of the mattress and lays bare the wool which he never touches with his fingers.

The longer stick in his right hand describes great circles in the air and descends with the whistle of a sword upon the wool of which it picks up a small handful.
Then the shorter stick comes into play, picks the wool from the longer, throws it into the air, beats it this way and that, tosses it and catches it until every fibre is clear, when the fluffy mass is deftly cast aside.
All the while, through the beating of the wool, the two sticks beaten against each other play a distinct air, and each mattress-maker has his own, handed down from his forefathers, ending with a whole chromatic scale as the shorter stick swoops up the length of the longer to sweep away the lingering wool.

Thus the whole mattress is transferred from a sodden heap to a high and fluffy mountain of carded wool, all baked by the heat of the sun.
The man has a hundred attitudes, full of grace.