approach. For ourselves, we had to go a stage higher in the world,
represented by the second floor. Here we found the quality at
breakfast--the substantial mid-day meal: a worthy crew hardly a degree
better than those we had just interviewed. They proved, indeed, the
roughest specimens we had yet met in Catalonia: an assemblage of small
farmers, pedlars and horse-dealers. Had the landlord added
house-breakers to his list, one or two might have answered to the
description.

But as travelling, like adversity, makes us acquainted with strange
companions, and we cannot always choose our types, we sat down to table
with a good grace. The only alternative was to fast, a penance in which
H. C. had no faith whatever. To-day this motley assemblage seemed
peculiarly objectionable, without any of the redeeming points such
people often have: honest, straightforward speech, directness of purpose
and modesty of manner which are a certain substitute for cultivation,
and atone for the want of breeding. Nothing of this was perceptible
to-day.

The room like the one beneath was long and low, but lighted only by one
window at the end, so that we were in a semi-obscurity still further
increased by the weeping skies. A redeeming feature was the civility of
the inn people, a fault their slowness. To make matters worse, the food
was coarse and ill-served, and we had to pass almost everything. Long
before dejeuner came to an end we left them to it and went forth to
explore. We had very little time to spare, having arranged not to spend
the night in Manresa: a lucky arrangement on our part, for picturesque
and striking as the place really is, its resources are soon exhausted. A
wet evening in such an inn would have landed one in the profoundest
depths of melancholy.

On leaving the table we found that for the moment the rain had ceased.
Our guide evidently thought it his duty to look after us, and no sooner
caught sight of us as we passed downwards than he sprang up, leaving
upon his plate a delicious piece of _black-pudding_. In vain we offered
to wait whilst he finished his bonne-bouche. "You are very good, senor,
but it is not necessary," he replied. "I am very fond of black-pudding,
but this was my third helping, and really I have had enough."

This seemed probable. "Apparently the supply equals the demand," we
said. "You must have a liberal master in the landlord of the inn."

"Yes, that is true," returned Sebastien--for such he soon