and so far from altering our ways, the ancient rule that a gentleman who has partaken of onions shall absent himself from court for eight days has fallen into abeyance. For those who prefer meat, there is plenty. Fowls, I know, are scarce, and you are so used to fowls that you think "no fowls, no meat"; and yet, I remember when I was a small boy and Queen Anne arrived at Santander to marry good King Philip II, she was presented there with two hundred fowls and a calf. As to sheep, ask the eight Germans who recently ate a whole one between them; besides, does not the famous Lazarillo de Tormes tell us that it is the regular thing at Maqueda to eat sheep's heads on Saturdays at three maravedis apiece? and on fast days we have special permission to eat cow-heels and sucking pigs. Now, how can these things be if we have no sheep nor cows nor little pigs? On the contrary, you Germans, who take so well justified a pride in your bacon at home, how is it you say nothing about it after a week or so with us? Why, we have an author, Lope da Vega Carpio, who will soon be recognised as the greatest writer since Seneca, who always takes a rasher of our bacon before starting to write, as a stimulant! But I can quote something better than your own experience—the words of the King and of St. Michael. Charles V advised the great Alonzo de Guzman against going to Italy, "Better stay at home and kill rabbits on your own hills and eat them than be killed by the sea and be eaten by the fishes": and when the said Alonzo dreamed that he was dead, St. Michael appeared and sentenced him to return to earth for his misdeeds and eat roast meat and be content; and Alonzo found himself able to arrange for roast duck in summertime and an "olla" keeping hot in the chimney in winter. If I say nothing as to wild boar and partridge, it is merely because it is getting late. But I will just add this in confidence, that people, we find, pay more willingly when the bill is accompanied by a cheerful "Y haga les buen provecho." The Muscovy delegate, "Cologne Jimmy" of Nerva, had drawn the third place; but being temporarily bereft of his faculties by the number of drinks new to him, a discussion was substituted at the instance of M. Petit, who enjoyed most of the French custom at Rome, on the evil of free board and lodging which various institutions provided, a most demoralising custom and very hard on those who wished to gain an honest living. At Seville and Montserrat, he had heard, things had come to well-to-do people being given fish as well as bread, and at Amsterdam foundations were even being instituted on a secular basis. That they might be in a better position to take action, it was proposed to form an Innkeepers' Association, but when an Irish waiter from Madrid suggested as a motto, "Pediculus pro comite jucundo," recriminations ensued which soon rendered adjournment necessary. Nevertheless, at the banquet in the evening all passed off happily in the traditional way.