“Yes, good Spaniardo, when I left the blessed island of England, where they eat asparagus on the first of March, I was a smiling and prosperous man; but now owing to this climate, my smile is hidden in my beard, while my prosperity has had too many Spanish flies upon it to be any longer a very prosperous affair.”
“Doubtless, sir, you have not travelled into our fairest places?”
“I have travelled this peninsula of yours from Sagres to Perpinan, from Granada to the Asturias. And other than myself there only lives one person better able to offer an opinion of its sand, its flies, its pigs, its inns, its whims and whams, and its infamously dirty furniture.”
“And who, sir, is he?”
“The Devil.”
“Wherefore one of his infamous character?”
“The Devil made it.”
“By my sooth that is what I can never believe.”
“It is what the Scriptures inform us, Spaniard.”
“Not so, by my faith.”