would have been returned without the money if I had not demanded it; and
I did what I could with the fact that this amusing financial
transaction, involving a total of fifty dollars, had taken place in the
chief banking-house of one of the commercial and industrial centers of
the country. Valladolid is among other works the seat of the locomotive
works of the northern railway lines, and as these machines average a
speed of twenty-five miles an hour with express trains, it seemed
strange to me that something like their rapidity should not have
governed the action of that bank director in forcing me to ask back my
discredited letter of credit.




XI


That evening the young voices and the young feet began to chirp again
under our sun balcony. But there had been no sun in it since noon and
presently a cold thin rain was falling and driving the promenaders under
the arcades, where they were perhaps not unhappier for being closely
massed. We missed the prettiness of the spectacle, though as yet we did
not know that it was the only one of the sort we might hope to see in
Spain, where women walk little indoors, and when they go out, drive and
increase in the sort of loveliness which may be weighed and measured.
Even under the arcades the promenade ceased early and in the adjoining
Plaza Mayor, where the _autos da fe_ once took place, the rain still
earlier made an end of the municipal music, and the dancing of the lower
ranks of the people. But we were fortunate in our Chilian friend's
representation of the dancing; he came to our table at dinner, and did