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266 DAYS IN THE SUN
These princes have a salary of two or three thou-
sand dollars for each performance and if they live to
be as old as forty they become millionaires. At every
appearance in the arena, they are bedecked with gold
and jewels of great value. But they carefully pick up
the poor cigars which the people throw to them in
their wild enthusiasm, and do a little side line yielding
quite an income, selling these cigars. Nor is the man-
ner in which they ordinarily come by their jewelry and
other adornments exactly indicative of great delicacy
of feeling.
Before the espada slays the bull, he customarily
dedicates him to the fatherland, and the highest off-
cial in the audience—sometimes it is the King himself
—accepts this dedication in the name of the nation
and is obliged to reciprocate with a present. ‘These
compulsory gifts have been diminishing from year to
year, and the espada has therefore hit upon the idea
of dedicating the bull not only to the nation as a
whole, but also to some very rich man in the audience.
This is an extremely uncomfortable mark of attention,
for the Spanish being as they are, it is impossible for
one of them to retaliate with a lesser gift than a gold
watch, a diamond stick-pin or a large sum of money.
Foreigners also are often made the object of this ill-
disguised bunko game. The bull was once dedicated to
a Frenchman, present at a bullfight in Madrid, with
the following words, spoken in the pure jargon of the
streets by an illustrious bullfighter: “To Mu (Mon-
sieur), Mu Wife, and all the little Mus.” The well-
bred Frenchman, the honor of his wife and children
being at stake, threw his purse to the famous protag-
onist, who pocketed it without turning an eyelid.
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