At dusk we went to the station to take our departure from Toledo. In the train going up to Madrid was a large party of young men. Noisy, boisterous, rude, they cheered every lady who came to the cars, calling out to the good-looking ones to come to their apartment, and making sport of others; and all this with a freedom and indecorum that would not be tolerated even in our land of universal liberty. I was surprised both at their impudence and its impunity, and asked who the fellows were. “Oh,” said Antanazio, “they are college boys: the same all the world over!” Even so, I do believe. CHAPTER VII. LA MANCHA—ANDALUSIA. AS I took my seat in a “first-class” car and left Toledo, a gentleman in the same compartment asked me, “Is smoking disagreeable to you?” It was the first time that such a question had been put to me in Spain. I had heard it proposed to a lady, some days before, but generally no one pretends to _ask_ the privilege of smoking in the cars, or the parlor, or anywhere. Everybody smokes, everywhere. It is not interdicted in any department of any railway carriage. Occasionally, in some hotels, I notice a rule posted in the dining-room, “Smoking not allowed.” But nobody heeds it. An attempt to enforce it would probably lead to the sudden departure of all Spanish guests from the house. At the largest and best hotel in Madrid, sixty or seventy persons, ladies and gentlemen, were at dinner, (table-d’hôte), and in the midst of dinner, between the courses, gentlemen lighted their cigarettes, smoked them, and resumed their eating. Yet the notice forbidding smoking was in full view, or was until the clouds of smoke obscured it. In the reading-rooms of the hotels, oftentimes small and unventilated, nine out of ten are smoking all the time, and the thought never occurs to one of them that this may be a nuisance to others. I am told, that at the theatres in Spain, in the midst of the play, the audience smoke in their seats, and if any managers attain to such a moderate height of civilization as to publish a rule restraining the odious habit, the Dons of Spain pay no sort of attention to it. All attempts at reform end only in smoke. I asked Antanazio if smoking is allowed in the churches of Spain. “Oh no, no,” he answered, with a pious horror; “it was shocking to think of such a desecration.” “Then,” said I, “when I come to Spain to live, I will get a little church for myself, for nowhere else in this country can a man find refuge from this intolerable nuisance.” “Ah, yes,” he replied; “but perhaps the incense will make a smoke quite as disagreeable as the _American_ weed.” This was a double hit, as it reminded me of my Protestant aversion to incense in churches, and also of the fact that the weed and the habit of using it came from my part of the world.