tell you that I am a _titiretero_, (player of marionettes,) and that I
practised at Lerida."

A loud shout of laughter from the multitude encircling us greeted this
answer, and put an end to the questions.

"I swear by the d----l," exclaimed the judge, "that I will discover
sooner or later who you are!"

And he retired.

The Arabs, the Moroccans, the Jews, who witnessed this interrogatory,
understood nothing of it; they had only seen that I had not allowed
myself to be intimidated. At the close of the interview they came to
kiss my hand, and gave me, from this moment, their entire confidence.

I became their secretary for all the individual or collective
remonstrances which they thought they had a right to address to the
Spanish Government; and this right was incontestable. Every day I was
occupied in drawing up petitions, especially in the name of the two
ostrich-feather merchants, one of whom called himself a tolerably near
relation of the Emperor of Morocco. Astonished at the rapidity with
which I filled a page of my writing, they imagined, doubtless, that I
should write as fast in Arabic characters, when it should be requisite
to transcribe passages from the Koran; and that this would form both for
me and for them the source of a brilliant fortune, and they besought me,
in the most earnest way, to become a Mahometan.

Very little reassured by the last words of the judge, I sought means of
safety from another quarter.