them?" replied the other lad! "Is
it not worse to be a heretic or a renegade? or to kill your father or
mother?"

"Without doubt," admitted Cortado; "but now, since our fate has decided
that we are to enter this brotherhood, will your worship be pleased to
step out a little, for I am dying to behold this Senor Monipodio, of
whose virtues you relate such fine things."

"That wish shall soon be gratified," replied the stranger, "nay even
from this place we can perceive his house: but your worships must remain
at the door until I have gone in to see if he be disengaged, since these
are the hours at which he gives audience."

"So be it," replied Rincon; and the thief preceding them for a short
distance, they saw him enter a house which, so far from being handsome,
had a very mean and wretched appearance. The two friends remained at the
door to await their guide, who soon reappeared, and called to them to
come in. He then bade them remain for the present in a little paved
court, or patio,[20] so clean and carefully rubbed that the red bricks
shone as if covered with the finest vermilion. On one side of the court
was a three-legged stool, before which stood a large pitcher with the
lip broken off, and on the top of the pitcher was placed a small jug
equally dilapidated. On the other side lay a rush mat, and in the middle
was a fragment of crockery which did service as the recipient of some
sweet basil.

[20] The _Patio_, familiar to all who have visited Seville, as forming
the centre of the houses, and which serves in summer as the general
sitting-room, so to speak, of the family.

The two boys examined these moveables attentively while awaiting the
descent of the Senor Monipodio, but finding that he delayed his
appearance, Rincon ventured to put his head into one of two small rooms
which opened on the court. There he saw two fencing foils, and two
bucklers of cork hung upon four nails; there was also a great chest, but
without a lid or anything to cover it, with three rush mats extended on
the floor. On the wall in face of him was pasted a figure of Our
Lady--one of the coarsest of prints--and beneath it was a small basket
of straw, with a little vessel of white earthenware sunk into the wall.
The basket Rincon took to be a poor box, for receiving alms, and the
little basin he supposed to be a receptacle for holy water, as in truth
they were.

While the friends thus waited, there came into the court two young men
of