"'Tis a good six weeks, brother, since my last visit: and, as you know, I never call without need."
"Well, what is it you need?"
"I need," said Fuentes with great gravity, "the loan of your spectacles."
"Be serious, for God's sake! And do not raise your voice so: the French may be following you——"
"Dear Andrea, and if the French were to hear it, surely mine is an innocent request. A pair of spectacles!"
"The French——" began Don Andrea and broke off, peering down short-sightedly into the courtyard. "Ah, there is someone else! Who is it? Who is it you have there in the darkness?"
"Dios! A moment since you were begging for silence, and now you want me to call out my friend's name—to who knows what ears? He has a mule, here, and I—oh yes, beside the spectacles I shall require a horse: a horse, and—let me see—a treatise."
"Have you been drinking, brother?"
"No: and, since you mention it, a cup of wine, too, would not come amiss. Is this a way to treat the caballero my friend? For the honour of the family, brother, step down and open the door."
Don Andrea closed the window, and by-and-by we heard the bolts withdrawn, one by one—and they were heavy. The door opened at length, and a thin man in a nightcap peered out upon us with an oil-lamp held aloft over the hand shading his eyes.