When I
Proposed Paying Our Driver For The Exact Time, He Drooped Upon His Box
And, Remembering My Remorse In
Former years for standing upon my just
rights in such matters, I increased the fare, peseta by peseta, till his
Sinking spirits rose, and he smiled gratefully upon me and touched his
brave red cap as he drove away. He had earned his money, if racking his
invention for objects of interest in San Sebastian was a merit. At the
end we were satisfied that it was a well-built town with regular blocks
in the modern quarter, and not without the charm of picturesqueness
which comes of narrow and crooked lanes in the older parts. Prescient of
the incalculable riches before us, we did not ask much of it, and we got
all we asked. I should be grateful to San Sebastian, if for nothing else
than the two very Spanish experiences I had there. One concerned a
letter for me which had been refused by the bankers named in my letter
of credit, from a want of faith, I suppose, in my coming. When I did
come I was told that I would find it at the post-office. That would be
well enough when I found the post-office, which ought to have been easy
enough, but which presented certain difficulties in the driving rain of
our first afternoon. At last in a fine square I asked a fellow-man in my
best conversational Spanish where the post-office was, and after a
moment's apparent suffering he returned, "Do you speak English?" "Yes."
I said, "and I am so glad you do." "Not at all.
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