After seeing the picture-gallery Señor Gonzalo Segovia led me through a succession of narrow streets to the street Francos, one of the principal ways of the city, and stopped me in front of a little draper's shop, saying with a laugh, "Look! Doesn't this shop make you think of something?"
"Nothing at all," I replied.
"Look at the number."
"It is number fifteen: what of it?"
"Oh! plague on it!" exclaimed my amiable guide,
"'Number fifteen,
On the left-hand side'!"
"The shop of the Barber of Seville!" I cried.
"Precisely!" he responded—"the shop of the Barber of Seville; but be on your guard when you speak of it in Italy; do not take your oath, for traditions are often misleading, and I would not assume the responsibility of confirming a fact of such importance."
At that moment the merchant came to the door of the shop, and, divining why we were there, laughed and said, "No esta" ("Figaro is not here"), and with a gracious bow he retired.