“Well now, my son,” said Sir Richard Pendragon, assuming a grave air, which yet did not appear a very sincere one, “he who speaks you is one whose practice the Hand of God has not curtailed. He was proficient with sword and basket in his tenderest infancy. He has played with all the first masters in Europe; he has made it a life study. With all the true principles of this inimitable art he is familiar. He has been complimented upon his talent and genius, natural and acquired, by those whom modesty forbids him to name. And all these stores, my worthy Don, of experience, ensample, and good wit are at your command for the ridiculous sum of an hundred crowns.” “I have not an hundred crowns in the world, sir,” I confessed with reluctancy, for his arguments were masterful. “By cock!” he snarled, “that is just as I suspected.” There could be no mistaking the change in his demeanour when I made this unhappy confession. It caused him to resolve his gross and rough features into some form of contemplation. At last he said, with an eye that was like a weasel’s,-- “What is the sum in your poke, good Spaniard?” “I have but eight crowns.” “Eight crowns! Why, to hear your conversation one would think you owned a province.” “A good sword, a devout heart, and the precepts of my noble father must serve, sir, as my kingdom,” said I, hurt not a little at the remarkable change that had come over him. “I myself,” said he, “have always been governor and viceregent of that kingdom, and had it not been for a love of canaries in my youth, which in my middle years has yielded to a love of sherris, I must have administered it well. But there is also this essential divergence in our conditions, my son. I am one of bone and sinew, an Englishman, therefore one of Nature’s first works; whereas you, good Don, saving your worshipful presence, are but a mincing and turgid fellow, as thick in the brains as a heifer, and as yellow in the complexion as a toad under his belly. Your mind has been so depressed by provincial ideas, and your stature so wizened by the sun, that to a liberal purview they seem nowise superior to a maggot in a fig, or a blue-bottle fly in the window of a village alehouse.” “Sir Englishman,” said I haughtily, for since I had told him I had but eight crowns in the world his manner of speaking had grown intolerable, “I do not doubt that among your own nation you are a person of merit, but it would not come amiss if you understood that you pay your addresses to a hidalgo of Spain. And I must crave leave to assure you that in his eyes one of your nation is but little superior to a heathen Arab who is as black as a coal. At least, I have always understood my father, God keep him! to say this.” “By my faith, then,” said the Englishman, “even for a Spaniard your father must have been very ill informed.” “Sir Richard Pendragon,” said I sternly, “I would have you be wary of the manner in which you mention my father.”