rd of their tongue. We
Anglo-Saxons abroad have not a reputation for being polyglot, and I
never advertise my own small linguistic attainments unless specially
called upon to do so. I do not care particularly for the trouble of
talking myself, and one scores sometimes by a taste for silence. I made
rather a good point that way once in a certain Genovese _caffe_.

When that _desayuno_ had progressed as far as cold pickled tunny,
which came as a fourth course, we had an addition to the party. There
was a light pattering of feet along the tiles to the doorway, and I
felt the men around me bow--as they bowed to each newcomer. I joined
them in the salute, and heard with surprise, as the fresh arrival went
round by the table-head, the rustle of skirts--of tweed skirts, or else
of rough serge, I could not be certain which.

She took a seat opposite to me. The waiter placed before her a basin of
soup. It was a Mallorquin soup, which consisted for the most part of
slices of bread and a few slips of greens soaked in a very thin stock,
with an egg broken over the whole so that the boiling mixture poached
it lightly. Also there was a little oil added--native rancid oil. This
sounds very nasty, but like the taste for olives, if a taste for that
soup is once developed, it fascinates. Myself, I like this soup. The
woman opposite did not. She told the waiter to take it away, naming it
by its proper Mallorquin name.

"The _arte de cocina_ of our island is not for every one's palate,
I fear, senora," observed one of the men beside her. "It is not every
foreigner who takes to it like your countryman _vis-a-vis_."

Till then I had been uncertain of her nationality, though I had had my
suspicions of it, for the Anglo-Saxon walk differs from the gait of the
southern nations; but on this slender introduction we dropped into
conversation, and spoke in English of those desultory matters which one
does chat upon to a casual hotel acquaintance.

We others had ended our meal before she was midway, and the Spaniards
had finished their cigarettes and coffee before she rose.

"You say, sir," said she, when she pushed the dish of burnt almonds
finally away and rolled her napkin into its ring--"you say, sir, that
you are staying here some time. So am I. It is my happiness to know the
island well. If I can be of any use to you, command me. I see, with
regret, that you are blind."

I'm afraid I frowned angrily. She had touched me on my only sore p