He gravely walks on, and quite suddenly he comes upon a youthful
Briton smoking a cigar and dangling a thick stick.

"Ah!" the two men exclaim.

"What are you doing in Barcelona?" asks the Spaniard.

"The devil only knows, my dear man. I don't."

"I hope he had nothing to do with your coming here--idle hands, you
know."

The Englishman sat gravely down on a small granite column and
reflected.

"No," he answered after a pause, "it was not that. I left England
because I wanted to get away from--Well, from an old woman who wants
me to marry her daughter. I went to Monte Carlo, and, if you don't
mind my saying so, I'm hanged if she didn't follow me, bringing the
poor girl with her."

The Spaniard smiled gravely.

"A willing victim!"

"No, Lloseta, you're wrong there. That's the beastly part of it.
That girl, sir, was actually shivering with fright one night when
the old woman managed to leave us on the terrace together. Some one
else, you know!"