, Mr. Willard, and his staff, with a
representative of the Spanish Foreign Office, met us at the
station at Madrid on my arrival from Paris.

Madrid is a handsome city, comparatively modern. From its highest
point the great Royal Palace dominates the capital and from the
palace the royal park stretches unbroken to the Guadarrama
mountains sixty miles away.

In many respects Spain seems a land upside down. We arrived at
Madrid just at the close of the Carnival season. Masked balls
began at three in the afternoon and many theatres not until ten
or even eleven at night. Madrid sleeps late. The rich people get
up only in time for lunch. The streets are full of noise and
people until four in the morning, the sellers of lottery tickets
making special efforts to swell the volume of night sounds.

My visit to the King of Spain was at eleven in the morning.
Ambassador Willard went with me. As we entered the palace and
waited at the foot of an elevator, the car descended and one of
the little Princes of Spain, about eight years old, dressed in a
sailor suit, stepped out. Evidently he had been trained in royal
urbanity for he immediately came up to us, shook hands and said,
"Buenos dias."

And as we strolled down a long corridor where Palace guards in
high boots and cocked hats stood guard with halberds in their
hands another little Prince, about eleven, also in a sailor suit,
came out of a room and walked ahead of us; behind followed two
nuns, walking side by side at a respectful distance. As he
appeared in the corridor one of the guards stamped his halberd on
the floor, calling out in Spanish, "Turn out the guard--the
Infant of Spain." And in the guardroom at the end of the corridor
the guards, forming in line, clashing their arms, did honour to
the baby Prince.

Ambassador Willard and I waited in the great, splendid room of
the Palace. Inside, priests and officers, ladies, officials,
diplomats, were waiting to present petitions or pay homage to
their King. Outside in the court yard, the guard was being
changed, infantry, cavalry and artillery all being represented. A
tuneful band played during the ceremony of guard mount, which was
witnessed by crowds of poor folk who are permitted to enter the
Palace precincts as spectators.

While waiting I was presented to the Archbishop of Toledo, head
of the Spanish Church, resplendent in his gorgeous ecclesiastical
robes. Finally a court official came and said that I was to go