That was conclusive, and the little gentleman drew in his head and sat down opposite me. He was a charming companion, a young American of culture and courtly manners, who was travelling in Spain for his health. He loved the country and the people, and told me many anecdotes of acts of kindness of which, being sickly, he had been the object from this strange, tender, passionate race, as ready with generous help as with the stiletto-point. Poor little gentleman! I fear he has made a void in some fond household long since, for he was sore stricken with decline. "The Spaniard," he said, "in fine, is the most courteous of men; he never sits down to eat in your presence without offering you a share of his meal." And it is true. From Córdoba to Seville the way lies through a land of delights--the "tierra deleitosa" of Andalusia. Again we swept by green fields and silvery grey olive groves; anon we skirted vivid clusters of orange-trees laden with the great luscious fruit, which is ever in season. On we passed by plains bristling with huge spiky clumps of aloes alternating with growths of Barbary figs, until, towards twilight, we came in sight of the Guadalquivir with its boats, and on the farther side, near a copse of cypress, the walls of the Cartuja Convent, now turned into a porcelain factory by an enterprising Englishman, who makes imitation Moorish tiles where the hooded friars sang matins and lauds. It was seven o'clock when we drove into "proud Seville," too late to look at any of her marvels, but not too late to enjoy a good dinner in the Fonda de Paris, a namesake and branch of the hotel where I had been stopping at Madrid. My _vis-à-vis_ at the dinner-table was the Saragossa butcher--I began to think now he was a political agent--who had been my _vis-à-vis_ on my tedious ride over the mountains from Beasain to Alsasua. Was this varlet on my track? I began to entertain serious apprehensions on the score. It has been my lot for years to have been shadowed by _mouchards_, gendarmes, detectives, and policemen. My goings-out and my comings-in have been noted; my house has been watched by hulking louts in uniform whom their foolish superiors pitched upon as accomplished pryers; nay, even a female with _pince-nez_, sealskin jacket, long purse, and an Ollendorffian intimacy with most Continental tongues, has been cunningly slipped at my heels. I have been, thank the Lord, misunderstood by fools, belied by knaves, avoided by the timorous, tabooed by the contemptibly "respectable" (odious word), and slandered by scoundrels whom I had befriended. Heads have been wagged, and I have been adjudged a deep card and a dangerous character. Nothing could be got out of _me_.