You will hardly weary of watching the groups that come and go and sit and talk in this dreamy place.  If you are a lady, every black eye directs its full, tiresome stare at your face, no matter how plain that face may be.  But you have learned before this to consider those eyes as so many black dots, so many marks of wonder with no sentence attached; and so you coolly pursue your philosophizing in your corner, strong in the support of a companion, who, though deeply humanitarian and peaceful, would not hesitate to punch any number of Spanish heads that should be necessary for the maintenance of your comfort and his dignity.

The scene is occasionally varied by the appearance of a beggar-woman, got up in great decency, and with a wonderful air of pinched and faded gentility.  She wears an old shawl upon her head, but it is as nicely folded as an aristocratic mantilla; her feet are cased in the linen slippers worn by the poorer classes, but there are no unsavory rags and dirt about her.  “That good walk of yours, friend,” I thought, “does not look like starvation.”  Yet, if over there were a moment when one’s heart should soften towards an imposing fellow-creature, it is when one is in the midst of the orange granizada.  The beggar circles slowly and mournfully round all the marble tables in turn, holding out her hand to each, as the plate is offered at a church collection.  She is not importunate; but, looking in each one’s face, seems to divine whether he will give or no.  A Yankee, sitting with a Spaniard, offers her his cigar.  The Spaniard gravely pushes the cigar away, and gives her a medio.

More pertinacious is the seller of lottery-tickets, male or female, who has more at stake, and must run the risk of your displeasure for the chance of your custom.  Even in your bed you are hardly safe from the ticket-vender.  You stand at your window, and he, waiting in the street, perceives you, and with nods, winks, and showing of his wares endeavors to establish a communication with you.  Or you stop and wait somewhere in your volante, and in the twinkling of an eye the wretch is at your side to bear you company till you drive off again.  At the Dominica he is especially persevering, and stands and waits with as much zeal as if he knew the saintly line of Milton.  Like the beggar, however, he is discriminative in the choice of his victims, and persecutes the stony Yankee less than the oily Spaniard, whose inbred superstitions force him to believe in luck.

Very strange stories do they tell about the trade in lottery-tickets,—­strange, at least, to us, who consider them the folly of follies.  Here, as in Italy, the lotteries are under the care of the State, and their administration is as careful and important as that of any other branch of finance.  They are a regular and even reputable mode of investment.  The wealthy commercial houses all own tickets, sometimes keeping the same number for years, but more frequently