An
Alguazil - I Am Certain He Was An Alguazil, Though He Looked Like An
Italian Carabiniere And Wore A Cocked Hat - Loitered Into A Police
Station; But I Remember No One Else During Our Brief Stay In That Street
Except Those _Bouffe_ Boy Beggars.
Of course, they wished to sell us
postal-cards, but they were willing to accept charity on any terms.
Otherwise our Spanish tour was, so far as we then knew, absolutely
without incident; but when we got too far away to return we found that
we had been among brigands as well as beggars, and all the Spanish
picaresque fiction seemed to come true in the theft of a black chudda
shawl, which had indeed been so often lost in duplicate that it was time
it was entirely lost. Whether it was secretly confiscated by the
customs, or was accepted as a just tribute by the populace from a poetic
admirer, I do not know, but I hope it is now in the keeping of some
dark-eyed Spanish girl, who will wear it while murmuring through her
lattice to her _novio_ on the pavement outside. It was rather heavy to
be worn as a veil, but I am sure she could manage it after dark, and
_could_ hold it under her chin, as she leaned forward to the grille,
with one little olive hand, so that the _novio_ would think it was a
black silk mantilla. Or if it was a gift from him, it would be all
right, anyway.
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