“‘_Es un mentira_, a pack of lies and nothing more,’ again answered his grace Don Serafin; ‘don’t believe half a syllable of the story.’
“The Alcalde looked at me with a scowl as if he could devour me.
“‘How dare you accuse a gentleman of such a thing? Get along with you, you lying rogue.’
“I then with great humility brought out the paper signed by Don Serafin himself, in which the money was promised at a certain date. ‘Señor,’ I said, ‘your grace will recognise this writing. The money is a large sum to a poor man like me; I hope you will pay it at once.’
“The Alcalde looked at the paper and was obliged to admit my claim. But he still smiled sweetly on Don Serafin, and looked as fiercely at me as if I were robbing them both.
“Don Serafin tossed back the paper scornfully, and with it a note for fifty dollars. ‘You shall have the rest in two months’ time,’ he said, ‘will that satisfy you?’
“‘Pardon me, your grace,’ I said, ‘but I am a poor man and I want the money. It seems, I dare say, but a mere trifle to you, it is a little fortune to me. Please pay me my two hundred and fifty dollars.’
“Don Serafin looked at the Alcalde, making a sign. The Alcalde was silent. ‘You fellow, to dictate to me in that way; take the fifty dollars and be thankful to the Virgin; or leave them if you please, I don’t care.’
“I turned to the Alcalde and humbly asked his intercession; but it was quite clear I had little enough to expect of him. He seemed to think I was mighty lucky to get anything at all; so, after standing in the presence of the great man till I was ready to drop, I took the fifty dollars and went away.”
“And did you ever get the remaining two hundred dollars?” I asked.
“No, Signorita, not I. I got a part, ten dollars one month, ten another, and so on, but never the whole. _Es una cosa de España._ We of the white blood must submit to those of the blue.”
These stories are both worth something as testimony of things as they are, or very lately were, in Spain, and we heard others which I remember less clearly.
There are a great many gipsies at Granada still, and, though they have lost their prestige for romance and daring, a good deal of interest is attached to them. They seem now to be held as very inoffensive sort of people, are miserably poor, dirty, and live troglodyte fashion, in caves hollowed in the hill-side. The King of the Gipsies, or _El Capitan_ as he is called, is a fine musician, and we invited him to come up to the hotel one evening and play to us. Captain Antonio’s company is not to be had for the asking. He is, or affects to be, a little shy, wants coaxing and persuading, will not play except before a large audience; and, as Bensaken said to us, “He is a great man in his way, and you couldn’t offer him less than two dollars.”