to the waiter. Then he drew forward a chair to the table occupied
by Sir John, who sipped his claret and bowed coldly.

'You must not think that Madrid is always like this,' said Larralde.
'But perhaps you know the city--'

'No--this is my first visit.'

Larralde turned aside to give his order to the waiter. His
movements were always picturesque, and in the presence of Englishmen
he had a habit of accentuating those characteristics of speech and
manner which are held by our countrymen to be native to the
Peninsula. There is nothing so disarming as conventionality--and
nothing less suspicious. Larralde seemed ever to be a typical
Spaniard--indolently polite, gravely indifferent--a cigarette-
smoking nonentity.

They talked of topics of the day, and chiefly of that great event,
the hurricane, which was still raging. Larralde, whose habit it was
to turn his neighbour to account--a seed of greatness this!--had
almost concluded that the Englishman was useless when the
conversation turned, as it was almost bound to turn between these
two, upon Conyngham.

'There are but few of your countrymen in Madrid at the moment,'
Larralde had said.

'I know but one,' was the guarded reply.

'And I also,' said Larralde, flicking the ash from his cigarette.