"Your Excellency, it would be a thousand pities!"
"Hey?"
"There has not been a finer burning these two years, they tell me. And that old blasphemer's beard, when they set a light to it! . . . I am a poor Gallego, your Excellency, and at home get so few chances of enjoyment. Also I have dropped my whip, and it is trodden on, broken. In the crowd at the Terreiro de Paco I may perchance borrow another."
Ruth alighted in a blaze of wrath.
"Wretched man," she commanded, "climb down!"
"Your Excellency—"
"Climb down! You shall go, as your betters have gone, to feed your eyes with these abominations. . . . Nay, how shall I scold you, who do what your betters teach? But climb down. I will drive the mules myself."
"His Excellency will murder me when he hears of it. But, indeed, was ever such a thing heard of?" Nevertheless the man was plainly in two minds.
"It is not for you to argue, but to obey my orders."
He descended, still protesting. She mounted to his seat, and took the reins and whip.