go," exclaimed Brown in his best drawl. "That, in fact, is why I am going." He ran his hand through the locks which had been flattened by the pressure of his hat; he spread his fingers with something of the gesture of a Cambogian dancer. "Behold an opportunist," he said. This was hardly news to William and Mary. Brown had reached the sensible conclusion that it pays better to say cynical things of oneself than to let others say them; he disarms criticism by becoming his own critic. "I follow the new gleam," he went on, "and, thank goodness, it leads southwards. I'm sick of rain. That blessed Apostle has opened the gates of the sun to us poor shivering painters. But, mind you, I'll be frank. I wouldn't go if only painters were going. But it's the patrons who are on the move. Lady this and the Honourable that, after having seen Luke's backyards and bare babies, are smitten Spanish. I know of half a dozen scions who are now trying to convince the Castilian how much better his language would sound with an Oxford accent. plained the plan they had worked out. For persons who earn their money by painting mere pictures, Spanish travel may be rather expensive. Two years ago you could get to Constantinople from London for about the same sum as would now only carry you to Madrid, so that any way of short-cutting expenses is grateful. William and Mary flattered themselves that they had discovered such a way. Once the keeper of a Barcelona tavern had led them to a shipping-office, which was half ticket - office, half bootblacking establishment, where they had taken two first-class passages upon a steamer of the Ibarra line. From the excitement, both in the office and on the steamer, it was clear that nobody had travelled first-class before, although fees were ridiculously small. For only forty pesetas apiece they had a fairly large-sized cabin, with four berths, though washing appliance there was none, the public washing apparatus, of a primitive marine pattern, being on the other side of the state-room. Evidently original calculations had been that real ladies either did not travel or did not wash. For forty pesetas William and Mary had had a four days' tour, stopping at the ports of Tarragona, Valencia, Alicante, and Carthagena. The ship voyaged by night upon a perfect sea; all day could be spent rambling about strange Spanish towns which lie out of the regular 2 B as though Mr Brown had become so used to posturing that he must pose even to himself. tourist track. The way had the street his silhouette had been enlivened by a cabin-boy assumed all its old swagger, dominated by a glass eye, which was persistently open and cheerful, while his real eye was drooping and sentimental-a cabin-boy who had fallen instantly and passionately in love with one of the girl deck passengers, who, alas! was herself in love with a soldier. So that the dreamy Mediterranean dusks-in which Venus hung, like some tall lighthouse spark set over shoals on which poor humanity finds itself too often stranded-were threaded by the unrequited cabin-boy's passionate confidences and self-pity. From Carthagena the ship would pass in nightly stages to Aguilas, Almeria, Malaga, Algeciras, Cadiz, Huelva, and Seville, with this temptation, that the longer the journey the lower, comparatively, was the fare; until the whole tour, lasting eleven or twelve days, should cost scarcely more than a bedroom during the same period of time in a secondclass hotel. Such was the plan Mary outlined to Mr Brown; in this way a considerable acquaintanceship of normal Spain could be gathered with a little outlay, and, what was better, without the disturbance of hotelseeking. The coffee now being ready, they began to discuss other aspects. At last Mr Brown took his leave. The rain had stopped, and as he walked down the alley-way from the studio to Some time elapsed ere William and Mary received a letter from their friend. It was addressed from the Posada de San Francisco, Caldoz, Province of Granada. Mr Brown gave a full description of his voyage. Alicante, Cadiz, and Malaga pleased him; he was disappointed with Valencia and Seville. In the last town he had stayed some time studying with a professor of the guitar. Having read all his literature, after having spent many days dreaming over the romance of a map, Brown had fixed upon Caldoz, a little remote town or village between Granada and Malaga. Washington Irving first interested him in Caldoz: the description of the sudden and foolhardy capture by the Spaniards of a fortress leagues within the confines of Moorish territory, of the Moor's futile efforts to retake the place, stirred his imagination. He liked Gautier's account toothe town perched high on precipices, the gorge split open by earthquake, the white mills, the creamy water. Then when he found that Caldoz was far from the railway, and therefore probably unattacked by tourists and possibly cheap, he decided to make an attempt to get there. To be as brief as possible for this letter of Mr Brown's is not the one on which we wish to concentrate, -he had hoped to reach Caldoz from Malaga. But the exigencies of Spanish travel had made him take a hundred miles' train journey, which ended at last in an enforced walk from Granada. His baggage he sent from Granada to Caldoz by a carter named Miguel. With some pain, for the distance was over thirty miles, he had at last arrived at Caldoz afoot, which he might more easily have done from Malaga. He wrote further that he was now settled down and working hard. He was rather disturbed by the fact that one child in the posada was dying of diphtheria and neglect; that two others were sick with a deadly form of measles, which was killing six children a day; and that the baby was dangerously ill from overfeeding. But he added that, as far as he could learn, Caldoz was in no way exceptionally unhealthy for a Spanish village in the summer, that the nights were cool, the posada free from vermin; and that, since he could not afford to run away from Spain nor could expect to find better health conditions and so clean a posada elsewhere, he had decided to remain where he was. But, would William please send him by return of post a tube of diphtheria serum and a hypodermic syringe? Otherwise he was very happy. The serum and the syringe were posted to Brown at once. William added a short note wishing him the best of luck and a happy escape, adding, "How's the guitar?" A month later the following letter was received from Brown. MY DEAR BENEFACTORS, The serum arrived all right, but was never used. The child with diphtheria died, the two with measles survived, the baby is still struggling with success against the flood of milk, and I suppose since the normal infant mortality in Spain seems to be over 50 per cent, since each parent consoled José and his wife by saying "these things happen to every matrimonio," since the family itself hasn't gone into mourningwe should feel causes for congratulation that any have sur II. vived, rather than distress that one has been lost. I have been told that the doctor got his degree by bribery, and I have heard him say that "he isn't interested in children's illnesses anyhow," so I believe that I should doubly congratulate myself that I have been fairly fit up to now. However, to turn from what seems normal tragedy to what is perilously near farce, your query about my guitar lets me give you a yarn. If you decide to publish it, for heaven's sake don't leave out my name; I've told you before how difficult it is to get the public really conscious of the existence of myself, owing to the poor quality of a name like John Brown for advertising purposes. And remember, a painter must advertise. In my last letter I told you how I had walked from Granada to Caldoz away from the bugs in the posada. However, I'll start again in Granada at the office of the post flivver. There wasn't a soul in the place but one old chap, who made one almost believe that a human had been mated to a turkey. He was asleep, and a playground for flies. When I woke him up he seemed to be half senile. I said I wanted to get away from Granada at once; I scratched suggestively. ever, I had pretty well made up my mind to walk even if Wednesday was free. Two more nights of bugs did not attract me. This decided me at once. Then I met another obstacle. The master refused to carry my baggage. A positive and shocked"No!" Very annoyed, I asked if there was any method of getting about in Spain, to which he replied: Miguel, the carter, who might be found in the Posada del Sol, would arrange everything for me. Off I went to the Posada of the Sun, which in truth looked more like the inside of an emptied aquarium than a sun-bath. The courtyard of the Posada del Sol was like a deep square well in the mass of the old building, which leaned in on every side. It "You can go on Thursday," was spacious enough for three said he. "Thursday! That's three days hence. Nonsense!" I answered. He got out the office book to prove it. It was true enough for the morrow, but I soon spotted that Methuselah, who evidently couldn't read, had been adding in the date and the destination for Wednesday, so that actually there were two seats vacant in two days. Then he said that the master would be back during the afternoon; I had better return later. When I did come back I found that the blessed master had the two seats booked up in his waistcoat pocket, so the old turkeycock was right after all. How big two-wheeled waggons, a well with a marble top-probably Moorish, and piles of merchandise, conspicuous amongst which were several rocking-chairs. Some of the walls were supported on pillars, many of marble, evidently loot from old Moorish palaces. The deep azure of the sky above threw an aqueous kind of illumination down into the place, and the vivid mosses on the walls and the smell of damp exuding from the well added to the aquarium-like impression which I had felt at once. If Miguel had been flopping about with a fish's tail, and if the fat girl who was combing her hair in public had been sitting on the curb of the well with her feet inside, the illusion would have been complete. Spain, amongst other varieties, has two characteristic makes of men, which I would designate the biltong type and the sausage type. Are my memories of Fenimore Cooper correct? Did not they call sundried meat biltong? Well, that type of Spaniard looks as if he were ready to put away in a store-house, dessicated into immutability. You can't imagine he ever was young, and you can't believe he'll ever be older than he is. Both the radical heat and the radical moisture have been extracted from him. He is long and lean and brown, and so dried that you might believe he would snap like Bombay duck if you tried to bend him forcibly in any part. That's the sort of man Miguel was. The other type looks as if he had been made the way butchers do sausages, as if the skin, having been tied here and there, had been rammed with meat as plentifully as it would hold, and as if the grease had oozed out a bit. Of course there are various sorts of sausages: there's the Bologna variety— the ass who sent me from Malaga to Loja was that type; there's the leber wurst, who looks as if he wants a good dose of Karlsbad; and there's the homely Harris. Miguel's son was of the Harris variety. Miguel's fingers looked like bits of touchwood, and the son's were as the little sausages one "And you go by the motor," said Miguel, as soon as our business was settled. "No," I answered. "I am going to walk." He surveyed me from head to foot. He sneered. In spite of his reputation for politeness, the ignorant Spaniard often disguises incredulity by open contempt. "Ca!" he said, which is a contraction of an improper word. "It's nine leagues. You, walk!" He was the kind of man whose cigarette always sticks to his top lip when he is talking. I know I don't look much as Hercules, but his undisguised incredulity annoyed me. "Certainly I'm walking." "The cart starts at seven. Be there in time, little man, and you may ride in the cart. It won't cost you extra." I spit upon "little man,' as a Frenchman would say. We will skip the walk part, though I will just hint thathaving started that very night, tried a short-cut, lost my way |