“Well,” I said, “it’s wonderful how much New Yorkers don’t know about themselves.  This place was settled a long time ago by the few Spaniards there were in this part of the country, and they’ve stuck together ever since.  I don’t believe there are a hundred people in the city that know about the place.  Maybe it’s on account of the war, when these people had to keep pretty quiet, but whatever it is, they are here.  I’ve been through here before and I’ve often wished that I could have stopped off.  Now the Lord seems to have taken matters into His own hands.”

If there was anything Henderson enjoyed it was tales and relics of the old Romance lands, and I knew it.  Then there was my ankle, which was throbbing painfully.

“If your old foot really is as bad as you say,” said Henderson, “why, we can put up here over night.  To-morrow is Sunday, you know, and we don’t have to be back.”

He spoke condescendingly, but I knew that if I suggested that after all we might get back he would almost get down on his knees and plead with me.  So I spared him the trouble.  We started again toward the little hamlet.  Henderson wanted to stop at the first house we came to, but I pulled him on.

“Let’s tackle that larger white one ahead there to the right,” I suggested.  “It looks to be the best of the lot—­and besides, the last time I was through here I noticed a mighty pretty girl standing in the doorway—­one of those black-eyed story-book senoritas you so dote on.”

“I’m surprised at a man of your age and dignity noticing senoritas,” he laughed.  Nevertheless he turned into the little garden and raised the iron knocker.

The door was opened almost instantly by a short, rather stoutish man, well past the prime of life.  There was nothing in his dress to mark him from the average middle-class New Yorker, but his face was swarthy and the hair that was not grey was glistening black.  We explained our desires.

“I am afraid you can find no accommodations,” he said, with but the slightest trace of an accent.

Henderson said something to him in Spanish, and as he did so the man stared a moment, smiled, showing all his teeth, and then answered in the same tongue with a flood of words that I could barely understand.  Then he took our hats and bowed the way into a little parlor.

“Will the senor with the injured foot recline upon the sofa?  I will bring in hot water to bathe it.  We have a large room upstairs with a bed for two, where the senores may pass the night.”  He took out a large gold watch.  “It is now quarter before six.  Dinner will be served at half after the hour.  Till then the senores may rest.  I will bring the hot water to your chamber.”

Promptly at six-thirty Henderson and I descended the stairs.  The rest and a bath had done us both good, and even my ankle, though badly swollen, had ceased to give much pain.  From the house and from our host we had gathered much of interest.  His family had come over some seventy-five years ago and had moved directly to the little house, which the widower Senor Lucas de Marcelo and his daughter Adelita still possessed.  Don Lucas himself was a jeweller, going in to the city every day.  We found him waiting for us at the foot of the stairs.