I Repaired Once More
To The Window, After Another Wait, And Said In Polite But Firm
Castilian, "Do Me The Favor To Return Me My Letter." A Commotion Of
Protest Took Place Within The Barrier, Followed By The Repeated
Explanation That The Director Was Verifying The Signature.
I returned to
toy place and considered that the suspicious document which I had
presented bore record of moneys
Drawn in London, in Paris, in Tours, in
San Sebastian, which ought to have allayed all suspicion; then for the
last time I repaired to the window; more in anger now than in sorrow,
and gathered nay severest Spanish together for a final demand: "Do me
the favor to give me back my letter _without the pounds sterling."_ The
clerks consulted together; one of them decided to go to the director's
room, and after a dignified delay he came back with my letter, and
dashed it down before me with the only rudeness I experienced in Spain.
I was glad to get it on any terms; it was only too probable that it
would have been returned without the money if I had not demanded it; and
I did what I could with the fact that this amusing financial
transaction, involving a total of fifty dollars, had taken place in the
chief banking-house of one of the commercial and industrial centers of
the country. Valladolid is among other works the seat of the locomotive
works of the northern railway lines, and as these machines average a
speed of twenty-five miles an hour with express trains, it seemed
strange to me that something like their rapidity should not have
governed the action of that bank director in forcing me to ask back my
discredited letter of credit.
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