Grandfather caught only the last word, for Carbonera was in a laggard mood, but one word was bait enough to land a riddle: “I sat at peace in my palace, Till I entered a stranger’s hut; Then my house ran out at his windows, And his door on me was shut.” “We have lost the first day of the feast, but we shall be in early enough for the fireworks, I hope,” said Uncle Manuel. His eyes were shining with an eagerness that made quite another man of him. “Look well to that rogue of a Blanco,” he added to Bastiano, who had come up with a peach for Pilarica. “We must not have any mishaps to detain us this afternoon.” “Never fear!” growled Bastiano. “If we fall in with a wild boar, we have Don Juan Bolondron and his popgun to defend us.” Rafael, who had been praised and petted (and forgiven) for his exploit on the mountainside until he was in no small danger of self-conceit, detected something that he did not like in this allusion and looked up sharply. “Who is Don Juan Bolondron?” he inquired. “Ask Pedrillo. He’s the story-teller,” replied Bastiano. “I’m taking his place at the rear, and I know why, too. “‘Lovers have such a simple mind They think the rest of the world is blind.’” “Once there was a poor shoemaker named Bolondron,” began Pedrillo in a great hurry. “All day he would sit cobbling at his bench and as he cobbled he would sing _coplas_ about his craft, as this: “‘A shoemaker went to mass, But he didn’t know how to pray; He walked down the altars, asking the saints: _Any shoes to be mended to-day?_’” “Or this,” struck in Grandfather. “‘To the jasper threshold of heaven His bench the cobbler brings: _Shoes for these little angels Who have nothing to wear but wings_.’” “One day when he was sitting on his bench, taking a bowl of porridge,” continued Pedrillo, “it happened that a few drops were spilled, and flies swarmed upon them, and he slapped at the flies and killed seven. Then he began to shout: ‘I am a great warrior and from this time on I will be called Don Juan Bolondron Slay-Seven-at-a-Blow.’ Now there was in the region about the city a forest, and in the forest a wild boar that liked the people so well he would eat several of them every week. The king had sent many hunters out to take him, but always they ran away or he devoured them, for he was the fiercest of the fierce. One day it came to the king’s ears that he had in his city a man called Don Juan Bolondron Slay-Seven-at-a-Blow. “‘This must be a terrible fighter,’ he said. ‘Bring him hither to me.’ “So Juan was brought into the royal presence. He wore his best shoes, but he trembled in them, though the king only looked at him out of two eyes, quite like anybody else, and said: “‘They tell me, my man, that you are mighty in battle. Is it true that you slay seven at a blow?’