The Washington times., 1925-12-14

auburn hair that seemed to crown
her with helmet Of old gold, she
smiled to him with a friendly,
somewhat knocking. intimacy:
Welcome, RafaelitO. JOINT
know why, but was expecting
you this AFTERNOON. We have
heard all about your striumphs; the
music and the tumuit reached
even to our desert Ny congratu-
lati6ns to the Honorable Don
Rafael Brull. Come right in. su
senoria. =
Chapter III.
From Valencia. to Jativa. in
all that immense territory COW
cred with rice fields and orange
groves which Valencians embrace
under the general and rather
vague designation Of La Rtbera,
there was no one unfamiliar with
the name Of Brull and the po-
: litical power it stood for.
AS IL national unity had not yet
been effected and the country
were still divided into taifas and
! Waliatos as the days when one
Moorish King reigned over Curlet.
another over Denia, and a third
over Jativa, the election system
maintained q sort of inviOlable
rulership in every district; and
when the administration people
came to Alcira in forecasttug their
political prospects, they always
said the same thing:
We're all right there. We can
rely on Brull.'
. The SBruil dynasty had been
bossing the district for thirty
years, with increasing power.
The founder Of this sovereign
house had been Rafael's grand
father, the shrewd Don Jaime,
who had established the family
fortune by fifty years Of slow
exploitation Of Ignorance and pow
.erty. He began life as a clerk in
the Ayuntamiento OF Alc1ra; then
he became secretary to municipal
Judge, then assistant to the city
clerk. then assistant-registrar OF
deeds. There was not q subordi-
nate position in those offices
where the poor come in contact
with the law that he did not get
his hands on; and from such
points Of vantage, by selling jus.
tice as a favor and using power
or adroitness to subdue the re-
fractory, he felt his way slong.
appropriating parcel after parcel
Of that fertile soil which he
adored with a miser's covetous-
ness.
A brazen charlatan he was.
every moment talking Of ARTICLE
Number So-and-So" of the law
that applied to the case. This
poor orchard workers came to
have as much awe for his learn
ing as fear of his malice, and
in all their controversies they
sought his advice and paid fer 1t,
as If he were q lawyer.
When he had gotten small
fortune together, he continued
holding his mental posts in the
city administration to retain the
superstitious respect which lis in
spired in pleasant-folk by all who
are on good terms with the law;
but not content with playing the
eternal beggar, dependent on tho
humble gratuities OF the poor, he
took to pulling them out If their
financial difficulties, lending them
money on the COIIaI0raI OF their
future harvests.
Every Wednesday, which was
market day in Alcira and brought
a great crowd OF orchard,folk to
town, the street where Don Jaime
lived was the busiest in the city.
People came in droves to ask for
renewal of their notes, each leav.
ing a tip of several pesetas usual
ly, not to be counted against the
debt itself Others, humbly, timid-
ly, as If they had come to rob
the grasping Shylock, would ask
for loans; and the strange thing
about it, as the malicious noted,
was that all these people, after
leaving everything they owned
In Don james hands, went off
content, their faces beaming with