It took us half an hour to find the sacristan to open the door of Santo Tome, or St. Thomas, where we went to see a famous picture by El Grecco, a burial scene, of considerable power, and were it not that Spain has hundreds of finer pictures than this, it would be worth the time it cost us to see it. Passing through the Zodocover, the largest public square in the city, where in the “good old times” of torture for the church, the poor unbelievers in papal faith have been made spectacles before the world, I met a boy with a pop-gun, anxious to show his skill in shooting with that formidable weapon. Yielding to his urgent desires, I set up a bit of money which he was to hit and take. A dense crowd, a hundred certainly, were the idle gazers on this ridiculous scene, forming a ring around me and the boy! I confess to a sense of great amusement when I stood where cardinals and bishops and priests, with armed soldiers and executioners, had burnt heretics in sight of kings, and multitudes thronging the tiers of balconies that look down into this square. It was certainly more human, not to say Christian, for me to divert this idle crowd by setting up coppers for a boy to shoot at with a pop-gun, than for my illustrious predecessors to entertain the populace of Toledo with the sight of martyrs burning at a stake. Tired of walking, for Toledo is so up-and-down, that you might as well ride on a ladder, we entered a café for refreshments. In the wide, open court was a deep well sunk into the solid rock on which the city stands, and the water thereof was as cool and sparkling and delicious as that which the woman of Samaria gave to him who told her all things that ever she did. The saloon was fifty feet long or more, filled with marble-top tables, and men were eating and drinking, playing dominoes, and smoking. It was toward the close of the day. Of all the people there, none called for spirits, scarcely any asked for wine. Coffee and chocolate were the principal drinks. There was no noise, no gambling. It was chilly, and the servant brought in a brazier filled with live coals, and set it near us. Others drew around it, as they did in the high priest’s court-yard when Peter denied his Lord. Many Oriental customs brought in by the Moors are still retained in Spain. I made an excuse for wandering up to the house-top, and found the houses so closely built against each other, with no intervening spaces, that you could easily look into your neighbor’s, and sometimes see what was quite as well not seen.