Pedro Romero said he had learned a little English in Gibraltar. He was born in Ronda. That is not far above Gibraltar. He started bull-fighting in Malaga in the bull-fighting school there. He had only been at it three years. The bull-fighting critic joked about the number of Malagueno expressions he used. He was nineteen years old, he said. His older brother was with him as a banderillo, but he did not live in this hotel. He lived in a smaller hotel with the other people who worked for Romero. He asked me how many times I had seen him in the ring. I told him only three. It was really only two, but I did not want to explain after I made the mistake.”

‘Where did you see me the second time? In Madrid?’

‘Yes,’ I lied. I had read the accounts of his two appearances in Madrid un the bull-fight papers, so I was all right.

‘The first or second time?’

‘The first.’

‘I was very bad,’ he said. ‘The second time I was better. You remember?’ He turned to the critic.

He was not at all embarrassed. He talked of his work as something altogether apart from himself. There was nothing conceited or braggartly about him.