whom I ordered a bottle of beer and asked if
there was a newspaper published here. He told me yes, the _Castro Mail_,
an independent weekly. I bade him fetch me a copy, even an old one, and
he brought me these two. I gave them a glance, and then, as if it didn't
interest me much, I questioned the lad about Don Calixto.

"The first impression I obtained was that Don Calixto is the most
influential person in the town; the second, that besides him, either
with him or against him, there is a Senor Don Platon Peribanez, almost
as influential as Don Calixto. Afterwards I read the two numbers of the
Castro periodical attentively, and from this reading I gathered that
there is a somewhat hazy question here about an Asylum, where it
seems some irregularities have been committed. There is a Republican
book-dealer, who is a member of the Council, and on whom the Workmen's
Club depends, and he has asked for information as to the facts from the
Municipality, and the followers of Don Calixto and of Don Platon oppose
this suggestion as an attack on the good-birth, the honour, and the
reputation of such respectable personages.

"Having verified these pieces of news, which are of interest for me, I
packed off to church and heard the whole eleven o'clock mass."

"Mighty good! You are quite a man."

"Mass ended, I went over to the Baptistery arch and stood there
examining it, as if I felt the most terrible symptoms of enthusiasm for
carved stone. Afterwards I went into the big chapel, which serves also
as a pantheon for the Dukes of Castro Duro, whose tombs you find in
the side niches of the presbytery. These niches are decorated with an
efflorescence of Gothic, which is most gay and pretty, and among all
this stone filigree you see the recumbent statues of a number of knights
and one bishop, who to judge by his sword must have been a warrior too.

"Nobody remained in the church; the priest, a nice old man, fixed his
eyes on me and asked me what I thought of the arch. And having prepared
my lesson, I talked about the Romanesque of the XII and XIII Centuries
like a professor, and then he took me into the sacristy and showed me
two paintings on wood which I told him were XV Century.

"'So they say,' the priest agreed. 'Do you think they are Italian or
German?'

"'Italian certainly, North Italian.' I might as well have said South
German, but I had to decide for something.

"'And they must be worth...? he then asked me with eagerness