“But I like the prickly pear that abounds in these parts,” went on Pedrillo, stealing a roguish glance at the woman beside him. And again he gruffly intoned one of those Spanish _coplas_ of which he seemed to have no less a store than Grandfather himself. “Be careful, be careful how you awake A certain bad little red little snake. The sun strikes hot, but old and young Stand more in dread of a bitter tongue.” “I’ll ask you an Andalusian riddle,” jerked back Tia Marta revengefully, the pan upon her knees trembling with her wrath until the beans rattled: “I can sing; loud I can sing, Though I hav’n’t hair nor wool nor wing.” “We know that in Galicia, too,” replied Pedrillo, moving an inch nearer his ungracious hostess. “Did you ever hear our story about the frog? Once two Galicians were tramping the road from Leon, and one said to the other: I’m going home to Galicia.’ ‘If God please,’ corrected his comrade. ‘Nay, whether God please or not,’ the profane fellow gave answer. ‘There’s only one stream now between me and my province, and I can cross that without God’s help.’ So for his impiety the water pulled him down and he was turned into a frog. Then for three years, what with leeches, swans and, worst of all, small boys, he did penance enough. But one day he heard a Galician about to cross the river say: ‘I am going home,’ ‘If God please,’ croaked the frog, and all in an instant, in a holy amen, he was a man once more and standing on good dry land in Galicia. And so I tell you, as a Christian should, that we all start at sun-up to-morrow for Cordova, if God please.”