and I knew it. Then there was my ankle, which was
throbbing painfully.

"If your old foot really is as bad as you say," said Henderson, "why,
we can put up here over night. To-morrow is Sunday, you know, and we
don't have to be back."

He spoke condescendingly, but I knew that if I suggested that after
all we might get back he would almost get down on his knees and plead
with me. So I spared him the trouble. We started again toward the
little hamlet. Henderson wanted to stop at the first house we came to,
but I pulled him on.

"Let's tackle that larger white one ahead there to the right," I
suggested. "It looks to be the best of the lot--and besides, the last
time I was through here I noticed a mighty pretty girl standing in the
doorway--one of those black-eyed story-book _senoritas_ you so dote
on."

"I'm surprised at a man of your age and dignity noticing _senoritas_,"
he laughed. Nevertheless he turned into the little garden and raised
the iron knocker.

The door was opened almost instantly by a short, rather stoutish man,
well past the prime of life. There was nothing in his dress to mark
him from the average middle-class New Yorker, but his face was swarthy
and the hair that was not grey was glistening black. We explained our
desires.

"I am afraid you can find no accommodations," he said, with but the
slightest trace of an accent.

Henderson said something to him in Spanish, and as he did so the man
stared a moment, smiled, showing all his teeth, and then answered in
the same tongue with a flood of words that I could barely understand.
Then he took our hats and bowed the way into a little parlor.

"Will the _senor_ with the injured foot recline upon the sofa? I will
bring in hot water to bathe it. We have a large room upstairs with a
bed for two, where the _senores_ may pass the night." He took out a
large gold watch. "It is now quarter before six. Dinner will be served
at half after the hour. Till then the _senores_ may rest. I will bring
the hot water to your chamber."

Promptly at six-thirty Henderson and I descended the stairs. The rest
and a bath had done us both good, and even my ankle, though badly
swollen, had ceased to give much pain. From the house and from our
host we had gathered much of interest. His family had come over some
seventy-five years ago and had moved directly to the little house,
which the widower Senor Lucas de Marcelo and his daughter Adelita
still possessed. Don Lucas hims