Could It Be The Signature Of My New York Banker Or My London One?

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.

XI

That evening the young voices and the young feet began to chirp again under our sun balcony. But there had been no sun in it since noon and presently a cold thin rain was falling and driving the promenaders under the arcades, where they were perhaps not unhappier for being closely massed. We missed the prettiness of the spectacle, though as yet we did not know that it was the only one of the sort we might hope to see in Spain, where women walk little indoors, and when they go out, drive and increase in the sort of loveliness which may be weighed and measured. Even under the arcades the promenade ceased early and in the adjoining Plaza Mayor, where the _autos da fe_ once took place, the rain still earlier made an end of the municipal music, and the dancing of the lower ranks of the people. But we were fortunate in our Chilian friend's representation of the dancing; he came to our table at dinner, and did with charming sympathy a mother waltzing with her babe in arms for a partner.

He came to the omnibus at the end of the promenade, when we were starting for the station next morning, not yet shaven, in his friendly zeal to make sure of seeing us off, and we parted with confident prophecies of meeting each other again in Madrid.

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