"Spain is a very curious country, sir--a very curious country indeed. Things happen there every day that could happen in no other spot of the globe. It is like one of those things which I think you call magic lanterns, where the scenes are always shifting, and nothing on earth remains steady for an hour. You may see a little ragged boy running in the street, and not long after he'll be walking about the court; a great man in velvet and lace, without anybody but himself knowing how it happened. There are only four things necessary to it--impudence, cleverness, youth, and good luck. Well, as I was saying, G----, the life-guardsman, in a very few months rose from nothing at all to be a prince and a minister. The old nobility grumbled and growled, and all the new people tried to stop his progress, till they found it was useless; but in the end the old and the new, both together, bowed down and licked his feet. All this time, as I have said, I heard nothing of him; and I thought he had quite forgotten me, and was just as selfish and cold-hearted as such sort of people generally are. But I made a mistake, sir, and think it but right to do justice to a man against whom everybody cries out. One day, as I was walking along the street in which his palace was situated--for he lived in a palace by this time--I saw a fine horse standing before the little door (there was a great door, where the carriages went in), and three or four servants, all magnificently dressed, by the side of it. Just as I was going to pass, who should come out but the prince himself, in a general's uniform, all gold, and feathers, and jingling spurs! I drew back, with my brass basin under my arm, to let him go by, thinking he would take no notice of me. His eye fell upon me, however; and he knew me directly and stopped. 'Ah, Carlini!' he said, 'is that you? Why, you have never been to see me. I haven't forgotten you, and if I can do anything to serve you, I will. Come to me here to-morrow at ten o'clock;' and then he told the servants to let me be admitted. There are some people who, as the French say, suffer fortune to knock at their door and do not open, but I am not one of that kind; and putting on the best clothes I had, I left my brass basin and my razors behind me, and went away the next morning to see the prince. I suppose there were at least twenty people in his ante-room, waiting to see him, and amongst them a great number of noblemen and high officers; but I went through them all, after a page, and was shown straight in. I could hear some of them say to their neighbours, 'Why, that's Carlini, the barber! We shall not see the prince for an hour, if he's only just going to be shaved;' but I laughed in my sleeve and went on. I found the great man stretched at his ease, in a dressing-gown of gold brocade, and I stood near the door, bowing down to the ground; but he said, 'Come near, Carlini--come near and sit down;' and he began to talk to me just as familiarly as ever.