of lapses. For one who had afición he could forgive anything. At once he forgave me all my friends. Without his ever saying anything they were simply a little something shameful between us, like the spilling open of the horses in bullfighting.
Bill had gone upstairs as we came in, and I found him washing and changing in his room.
“Well,” he said, “talk a lot of Spanish?”
“He was telling me about the bulls coming in tonight.”
“Let’s find the gang and go down.”
“All right. They’ll probably be at the café.”
“Have you got tickets?”
“Yes. I got them for all the unloadings.”
“What’s it like?” He was pulling his cheek before the glass, looking to see if there were unshaved patches under the line of the jaw.
“It’s pretty good,” I said. “They let the bulls out of the cages one at a time, and they have steers in the corral to receive them and keep them from fighting, and the bulls tear in at the steers and the steers run around like old maids trying to quiet them down.”
“Do they ever gore the steers?”
“Sure. Sometimes they go right after them and kill them.”
“Can’t the steers do anything?”
“No. They’re trying to make friends.”
“What do they have them in for?”