If I had only possessed a spare dollar or two, the thing would have been simple; but not owning a peseta, I had tremors. Still there was no help for it, and so following the _en avant_ principle, I swung the gate, and walked up between the orange-bushes to the little farmhouse. Two dogs sprang out from somewhere, barking furiously; but I like dogs, and never feared one yet, and that pair were soon reduced to oppressive civility. A small girl appeared, drawn by the uproar; but the sight of a stranger made her bolt mutely within doors. And then a woman came--a fat, tall, slatternly woman, whose husband was dead (she said), and who owned the farm which circled Talaiti de Talt. She was garrulous to a degree, and her voice--as is usual with the voices of cats and women out there--was harsh and grating. But I did not dam the flood of her eloquence (outwardly, at any rate), and so she went on till she was tired. Then I thanked her, and blarneyed her as well as I was able, although that wasn't much, as I never have been much of a hand with women. But the outcome of it all was that I might most certainly overhaul the old stone heap (which was her irreverent name for the historical pyramid) as much as ever I chose. And when she had given the permission, it struck me that I could have got it just as easily without having spent an hour and a half in the baking sun-blaze beating about the bush. But then, you see, I was so confoundedly nervous, and didn't guess that beforehand. However, as I was turning off down the orange grove again, the bulky senora seemed to think that something might be made out of it after all, for she called out to know whether I wouldn't like Isabelita to accompany me--Isabelita being the small girl, then engaged at unravelling a bamboo for a whitewash brush under the shade of the family date-palm. Or was there nothing else she could do for me? Everything of her poor stock was entirely at my disposition. My thanks were profuse--most profuse--but I would not rob her of anything, not even of the _hermosita's_ time. It would be my great pleasure to make that little angel some trifling present as I came back that way toward Mahon; at which time I might also wish to buy an orange or two. So until then. "_'Tenga_," said the woman, with a large fat smile. "_Bon di, senora_," said I, with a sweep of the hat, and turned off down the path and into the road again. Gad! wasn't I feeling jubilant then?