For a moment the Consul looked meditative.
"I'm thinking," he said. "You're right. That's the very place. Nice little house. Got a garden. Stable too. And a fine view from the veranda."
"Is the house near? Could we see it?" we asked.
"It's close by, in the Calle de Mas. We'll see about it, right away, now."
The Consul, happily for us, was a man of action. Ringing the bell, he summoned Isidoro, his man-servant, who summoned Margarita, his cook. And Margarita, having received instructions to search the wide world till she found the caretaker of the empty house and to bring her hither, departed at once on her quest. In an incredibly brief space of time she returned in company with a little old woman and two large door-keys.
Following her guidance we walked in procession round the corners of several secluded roads, whose yellow stone walls, flat roofs, and almost tropical foliage looked Oriental under the evening glow.
Viewed from the street, the house we sought, with its green shutters and tiled roof, resembled a hundred others. But when the big keys had performed their task, and we had passed through the two centre rooms and found ourselves on a wide stone-pillared veranda looking across the orange and lemon trees of the gardens to where the Mediterranean lay azure under the setting sun, our minds held no further hesitation. We knew that it was our own house.
Merely to assure ourselves that the house had no equal, we investigated the claims of two other vacant dwellings before returning to the Consulate. One had a basement in which a native family lived—apparently wholly upon garlic. The other attempted to make up in stucco images what it lacked in view.
It was too late that night to take any steps towards securing the house. The Consul, himself a versatile linguist, knowing that our meagre Spanish could hardly be expected to prove equal to the subtleties of house-hiring, arranged to accompany the Man and the Boy next day to interview the owner, and if possible to see the negotiations completed.