"I have been in bed these four hours or five. 'Peace,' say you? I wish you would take your own risks and leave me in peace! What is it you want, this time?" "'Tis a good six weeks, brother, since my last visit: and, as you know, I never call without need." "Well, what is it you need?" "I need," said Fuentes with great gravity, "the loan of your spectacles." "Be serious, for God's sake! And do not raise your voice so: the French may be following you----" "Dear Andrea, and if the French were to hear it, surely mine is an innocent request. A pair of spectacles!" "The French----" began Don Andrea and broke off, peering down short-sightedly into the courtyard. "Ah, there is someone else! Who is it? Who is it you have there in the darkness?" "_Dios!_ A moment since you were begging for silence, and now you want me to call out my friend's name--to who knows what ears? He has a mule, here, and I--oh yes, beside the spectacles I shall require a horse: a horse, and--let me see--a treatise." "Have you been drinking, brother?" "No: and, since you mention it, a cup of wine, too, would not come amiss. Is this a way to treat the _caballero_ my friend? For the honour of the family, brother, step down and open the door." Don Andrea closed the window, and by-and-by we heard the bolts withdrawn, one by one--and they were heavy. The door opened at length, and a thin man in a nightcap peered out upon us with an oil-lamp held aloft over the hand shading his eyes. "You had best call Juan," said his brother easily, "and bid him stable the mule. For the remainder of the night we are your guests; and, to ensure our sleeping well, you shall fetch out the choicest of the theses you have composed for your doctorate and read us a portion over our wine." We lay that night, after a repast of thin wine and chestnuts, in a spare chamber, and on beds across the feet of which the rats scudded. I did not see Don Andrea again: but his brother, who had risen betimes, awakened me from uneasy slumber and showed me his spoil. Sure enough it included a pair of spectacles and a bulky roll of manuscript, a leathern jerkin, a white shirt, and a pair of velvet-fustian breeches, tawny yellow in hue and something the worse for wear. Below-stairs, in the courtyard, we found a white-haired retainer waiting, with his grip on the bridles of my mule and a raw-boned grey mare. "The _caballero_ will bring them back when he has done with them?" said this old man as I mounted. The request puzzled me for a moment until I met his eyes and found them fastened wistfully on my breeches.