The Snuff-Box Is The Olive-Branch Of The Portuguese, And He Who Wishes To Be On Good Terms With Them Must Never Refuse To Dip His Finger And Thumb Into It When Offered.

I took therefore a huge pinch, though I detest the dust, and we were soon on the best possible terms.

He was eager to obtain news, especially from Lisbon and Spain. I told him that the officers of the troops at Lisbon had, the day before I left that place, gone in a body to the queen and insisted upon her either receiving their swords or dismissing her ministers; whereupon he rubbed his hands and said that he was sure matters would not remain tranquil at Lisbon. On my saying, however, that I thought the affairs of Don Carlos were on the decline (this was shortly after the death of Zumalacarregui), he frowned, and cried that it could not possibly be, for that God was too just to suffer it. I felt for the poor man who had been driven out of his home in the noble convent close by, and from a state of affluence and comfort reduced in his old age to indigence and misery, for his present dwelling scarcely seemed to contain an article of furniture. I tried twice or thrice to induce him to converse about the school, but he either avoided the subject or said shortly that he knew nothing about it. On my leaving him, the boy came from his hiding-place and rejoined me; he said that he had hidden himself through fear of his master's knowing that he had brought me to him, for that he was unwilling that any stranger should know that he was a schoolmaster.

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