Some time later on in the evening the players confided to us that they were the pupils of a maestro who lived in Alverca, and that they had only been studying for two months. The fact that there was a teacher in Alverca fired me. I had wanted to learn the laud for some while, but the opportunity had not offered itself. I inquired his terms. The band said that they were twopence-halfpenny a lesson. So I at once told it to send the maestro along. At 3.30—after we had been wondering for some time how much longer our eyes would remain open—the band took its leave, saying that it would come again one evening. It then marched, playing loudly, back to Alverca.
The maestro sent word that he would come on Tuesday evening. He was of that type of southern European that the American terms "Dago." He was typically Dago. He was a plumber by trade, and in the evening augmented his income by odd twopence-halfpennies picked up from the would-be "affectionates" of the guitar or laud. He loved wine with a sincere though timid reverence. When she heard that he was coming to give me a lesson, Encarnacion said:
"Oh, beautiful! And we will all come and listen to your lesson, and afterwards we will dance."
But even Spain could not make me unselfconscious enough to support that test. With grim harshness we locked the door on our lessons.
The maestro, like Blas, considered two airs his daily portion. At the end of the first air he would empty his tumbler of wine, and would gently repudiate the idea that it should be refilled. The third glass he accepted with quite vehement protestations. His course homeward was, I fear, usually more discursive than that of his coming. Like all Spanish musicians he sang upon the slightest excuse. He corrected my melody by singing: "Lo, La, Lo, La, Lo, La," as I played.
Having played the violin, the mandolin and the piano, I did not find the laud very difficult. It has a queer tuning in fourths and is played with the plectrum. But when La Merchora discovered that I had learned a piece in two days she was quite eloquent in her astonishment