which times her work was especially severe.

I realized in Cestona my childish ambitions of having a house of my own,
and a dog, which had lain in my mind ever since reading _Robinson
Crusoe_ and _The Mysterious Island_.

I also had an old horse named Juanillo, which I borrowed from a coachman
in San Sebastian, but I never liked horses.

The horse seems to me to be a militaristic, antipathetic animal. Neither
Robinson Crusoe nor Cyrus Harding rode horse-back.

I committed no blunders while I was a village doctor. I had already
grown prudent, and my sceptical temperament was a bar to any great
mistakes.

I first began to realize that I was a Basque in Cestona, and I recovered
my pride of race there, which I had lost.




XI

AS A BAKER


I have been asked frequently: "How did you ever come to go into the
baking business?" I shall now proceed to answer the question, although
the story is a long one.