VIII

We had authorized our little interpreter to engage tickets for us by the mail-train the next afternoon for Valladolid; he pretended, of course, that the places could be had only by his special intervention, and by telegraphing for them to the arriving train. We accepted his romantic theory of the case, and paid the bonus due the railroad agent in the hotel for his offices in the matter; we would have given anything, we were so eager to get out of Burgos before we were frozen up there. I do not know that we were either surprised or pained to find that our Chilian friends should have got seats in the same car without anything of our diplomacy, by the simple process of showing their tickets. I think our little interpreter was worth everything he cost, and more. I would not have lost a moment of his company as he stood on the platform with me, adding one artless invention to another for my pleasure, and successively extracting peseta after peseta from me till he had made up the sum which he had doubtless idealized as a just reward for his half-day's service when he first told me that it should be what I pleased. We parted with the affection of fellow-citizens in a strange monarchical country, his English growing less and less as the train delayed, and his eyes watering more and more as with tears of com-patriotic affection. At the moment I could have envied that German princess her ability to make sure of his future companionship at the low cost of fifty pesetas a day; and even now, when my affection has had time to wane, I cannot do less than commend him to any future visitor at Burgos, as in the last degree amiable, and abounding in surprises of intelligence and unexpected feats of reliability.