Roberto by this time had finished his story.

He knocked at Don Telmo's door and was resolved to linger there as
long as possible, that he might catch all he could of the
conversation. He began to dust Don Telmo's lamp-table with a cloth.

"And how did you ascertain that," Don Telmo was asking, "if your
family didn't know it?"

"Quite by accident," answered the student. "A couple of years ago,
about this time of the year, I wished to give a present to a sister,
who is a protegee of mine, and who is very fond of playing the piano.
It occurred to me, three days before her birthday, to purchase two
operas, have them bound and send them to her. I wanted to have the
book bound immediately, but at the shops they told me there was no
time; I was walking along with my operas under my arm in the vicinity
of the Plaza de las Descalzas when in the back wall of a convent I
caught sight of a tiny bookbinder's shop,--like a cave with steps
leading down. I asked the man,--a gnarled old fellow,--whether he
would bind the book for me in a couple of days, and he said 'Yes.'
'Very well,' I told him, 'then I'll call within two days.'--'I'll
send it to you; let me have your address.' I gave him my address and
he asked my name. 'Roberto Hasting y Nunez de Letona.'--'Are you a
Nunez de Latona?' he inquired, gazing at me curiously. 'Yes, sir.'--
'Do you come from la Rioja?'--'Yes, and suppose I do?' I retorted,
provoked by all this questioning. And the binder, whose mother was a
Nunez de Latona and came from la Rioja, told me the story I've just
told you. At first I took it all as a joke; then, after some time, I
wrote to my mother, and she wrote back that everything was quite so,
and that she recalled something of the whole matter."