the Romanones mines in Andalusia; and he had learned by now the art of
talking to the Scotch, whom he had discovered to be as extravagantly
literate as they were unsensuous. To them panpipes might play in vain,
but almost any series of statistics or the more desiccated kind of
social fact recited with a terrier-like air of sagacity would entrance
them. "The mines are Baird's, you know--Sir Milne Baird; it's a Glasgow
firm...." "Mhm," said Mr. Philip, "I know who you mean." Detestable,
thought Yaverland, this Scotch locution which implies that one has made
a vague or incorrect description which only the phenomenal intelligence
of one's listener has enabled him to penetrate, but he set himself
suavely enough to describe the instability of Spanish labour, its
disposition to call strikes that were really larks, and the greater
willingness with which it keeps its saints' days rather than the
commandments; the feckless incapacity of the Spanish to exploit their
own minerals and the evangelic part played in the shameful shoes by
Scotch engineers; and the depleted state of the country in general,
which he was careful to ascribe not so much to the presence of
Catholicism as to the absence of Presbyterianism. And he advised Mr.
Philip that while a sojourn in the towns would reveal these sad
political conditions, there were other deplorable aspects of the
national decay which could only be witnessed if he took a few rides over
the countryside. ("A horse or a bicycle?" asked Mr. Philip doubtfully.)
Then he would have a pleasant holiday. The language presented few
difficulties, although travelling off the tracks in Andalusia was
sometimes impeded by the linguistic ingenuity of the peasants, who,
though they didn't neigh and whinny like the Castilians, went one better
by omitting the consonants. Why, there was a place which spelt itself
Algodonales on the map and calls itself Aooae.

He watched her under his lids as she silently tried it over.