them from their statuesque fixity. His own excitement in comparison
seemed indecent.




X


It was now three o'clock and I thought I might be in time to draw some
money on my letter of credit, at the bank which we had found standing in
a pleasant garden in the course of our stroll through the town the night
before. We had said, How charming it would be to draw money in such an
environment; and full of the romantic expectation, I offered my letter
at the window, where after a discreet interval I managed to call from
their preoccupation some unoccupied persons within. They had not a very
financial air, and I thought them the porters they really were, with
some fear that I had come after banking-hours. But they joined in
reassuring me, and told me that if I would return after five o'clock the
proper authorities would be there.

I did not know then what late hours Spain kept in every way; but I
concealed my surprise; and I came back at the time suggested, and
offered my letter at the window with a request for ten pounds, which I
fancied I might need. A clerk took the letter and scrutinized it with a
deliberation which I thought it scarcely merited. His self-respect
doubtless would not suffer him to betray that he could not read the
English of it; and with an air of wishing to consult higher authority he
carried it to another clerk at a desk across the room. To this official
it seemed to come as something of a blow. Tie made a show of reading it