Uncle Bartolo entered, just as Lucas had finished his supper. “Sit by, Uncle Bartolo,” said the young man. “No, thank you. May what you have taken profit you! Will you have a 197 cigar?” “It wouldn’t come amiss.” Uncle Bartolo handed Lucas a paper cigar, lighted his own, and, with characteristic bluntness, plunged into his subject. “Lucas, man, will you tell me why you never speak of your sister? Does it appear to you that a sister is a patch sewed on to be ripped at pleasure?” Lucas, disagreeably surprised, contracted his brows as he answered: “I have no sister, Uncle Bartolo.” “What! what do you say?” “I have already said it. ‘In my manse they bestow but one loaf.’” “Go a-walking with your grand talk! I’d like to know what right you have to deny your sister, even though her life has not been what it ought to be?” Lucas had turned pale, and his beard trembled with repressed indignation. “Uncle Bartolo,” he replied, affecting an air of indifference, “the saying is, ‘He that goes away is not counted.’ Let us drop this conversation.” “I don’t feel disposed to; you may as well understand that. And now, let me tell you that this face of a judge, though it may be the correct one to show to a sinner, is not by any means the one to show to a penitent. Do you comprehend? Your poor little sister is penitent; and you know that ‘He who sins and mends, Himself to God commends.’” “I have said that I had no sister.” “Don’t be stubborn, for God’s sake! Look here now, soul of an ape! How can you say you have no sister, if he has given you one? Lucas, I have come, and I shall not go away until you forgive Lucia.” “Uncle Bartolo, don’t pledge yourself to what you cannot accomplish.” “You are your father’s own son--the one and the other harder-headed than oxen. Juan Garcia and Lucas Garcia: there’s a pair fit for a cart!” “Why fall upon me, sir, in such a shower of sarcasms? Is it necessary to give so many punches to say that the bull is coming?” “Because he comes with a purpose, and, ‘when things come with a purpose, more than the ass may fall to the ground.’ I tell you only the pure truth, and you, with your devil’s motto of ‘few words and bad ones,’ what you say has neither form nor sense! But to come back to the subject, for I don’t let go the handle this way when I am defending the right. As I was going to say, your stubbornness is worse than your father’s; because it is not so bad to be determined upon marrying one’s girl as to be determined not to forgive one’s sister. It’s better to do more than your duty than to do less. If your father lacked puncto, you have half a share too much. Your mother committed your sister to you; and you are disobeying the last will of her that bore you!” “She committed my sister to me, but not the kept miss of a villain.”