“I was roaming in the meadow and there, upon my soul, I met a little mansion out for a stroll. The dignified Lord Mayor was sitting in his hall. I said: ‘Come take a walk with me.’ He answered: ‘Not at all. My office is so serious I never leave my chair, But the city hall goes with me when I need to take the air.’” Meanwhile Rafael, who felt himself quite too grown-up for riddles, had dived into the darkness of the house, whence he soon came scampering out, followed by the shrill tones of Tia Marta. “The Gypsy King, indeed! And what sort of a king is that? Everyone is as God has made him, and very often worse.” “But may Pilarica go?” called Rafael. “Ask her grandfather. Am I a donkey, to bear all the burdens of this household?” “May I go, Grandfather?” teased Pilarica. The old man nodded at least twenty times and, catching up the word _donkey_, struck with his quavering voice into a popular tune: “Little I am, but everywhere Blows and burdens I have to bear. _Haw-hee!_ “That is why my voice of long protest Has grown to be bigger than all the rest Of me.” “_Haw-hee!_” echoed Rafael, with such a good imitation of a bray that a genuine ass made sonorous answer from the highroad beyond. “Grandfather says I may go,” cried Pilarica joyfully into the arched doorway. “Bah!” responded Tia Marta. “His heart is softer than a ripe fig.” But she did not take back the permission, and Pilarica had the rare delight of an excursion with Rafael outside the garden. Half ashamed of his condescension, the boy did not spare her, but tore at his full speed along the dusty road, between giant hedges of aloes, with their blue, sworded leaves, and lances tipped with yellow blossoms, so that it was a very hot, panting little girl who arrived, hardly a minute behind him, at the fountain on whose steps was enthroned the Gypsy King. This was a very splendid personage indeed, with his high, peaked hat sparkling all over with pendants of colored glass that flashed back the sun like crown jewels. His slashed jacket was wondrously embroidered and spangled and his broad sash was of scarlet silk. Even his trousers and stockings looked as if he had been wading in a sunset. Smiling on Pilarica, he drew a bright cup from his wallet and, leaning toward the fountain, filled it with water that could not have looked more deliciously fresh and cold if the cup had been made of purest silver instead of gypsy tin. But thirsty as she was, the little Andalusian maiden handed the cup back to the giver. “After you, please,” she said as sweetly as if her throat were not almost choked with the white dust.