they behaved to him in the most outrageous manner. He is here now
and is going to give a series of fetes. Of course he will not ask a
single Englishman."

"We shall manage to live even though the Marquis D'Almavivas may
frown upon us," said I, proudly.

"He is the richest, and also the best of our noblemen," continued
Maria; "and I never heard of anything so absurd as what they did to
him. It made me blush when Don -- told me." Don Tomas, I thought
she said.

"If he be the best of your noblemen, how comes it that he is angry
because he has met two vulgar men? It is not to be supposed that
every Englishman is a gentleman."

"Angry! Oh, no! he was not angry; he enjoyed the joke too much for
that. He got completely the best of them, though they did not know
it; poor fools! How would your Lord John Russell behave if two
Spaniards in an English railway carriage were to pull him about and
tear his clothes?"

"He would give them in charge to a policeman, of course," said I,
speaking of such a matter with the contempt it deserved.

"If that were done here your ambassador would be demanding national
explanations. But Almavivas did much better;--he laughed at them
without letting them know it."

"But do you mean that they took hold of him violently, without any