So it was decided. Three pesetas a day was to be the price. And it was with a feeling of keen curiosity as to what our host would provide for the money that we awaited the appearance of the first meal, which was to be served immediately. Señor Calafill at Andraitx had given us the perfection of French cookery, the best of wines, at three and a half pesetas. But his house was less pretentious, being a shop only and not a fonda.
Our hostess, a nice, bright little woman who wore her hair in a pigtail and the rebozillo, bustled in and began laying the marble-topped table with fresh napkins, good cutlery, rolls, a bottle of wine, and a syphon of soda-water. Then she added a dish of fruit, and running off to the kitchen returned with the soup—a good thick Majorcan soup, full of rice and sweet peppers and chopped meat. The second course was a large dish of fish served with fried potatoes. Then we had, as a fruit course, apples and mandarin oranges. The fare might not be lavish, but it was assuredly all we required.
Our rooms, which were the best the house afforded, were small but clean, and during our stay proved quite free from mosquitoes.
When we discussed how we would spend the afternoon, the Boy and I hotly advocated walking to the port of Pollensa. A traveller from an inland town who had shared the box-seat of the diligence with the Boy had spoken enthusiastically of its beauty. His family was accustomed to spend the hot months there. The fishing, he said, was splendid, the fish being of much finer quality than those taken in the neighbouring bay of Alcudia.
"A salmonetta caught in the bay of Pollensa is a salmonetta," he had declared emphatically.
The Man wisely objected to the expedition. The port, he reminded us, was seven kilometros (nearly five miles) away, and that was too far to go and return comfortably in the short winter afternoon. Besides, when we had come to see a curious old town, why not stay to look at it?
But from my bedroom window I had caught an enchanting glimpse of the port—a segment of blue water hemmed in by steep rocky mountains. It seemed so near that I flouted the idea of the five miles, and the afternoon being a glorious one we finally agreed to go.
As we passed along an outlying street an old man, who stood outside his house superintending the drying of a great tray of macaroni, wished us "Good day."
In returning his greeting the Man added a remark on the beauty of the weather, which indeed to us seemed perfect.
"No. This weather is not good. It is bad," the old man said severely. "It is rain that is needed. The country suffers. No, señor. This weather is bad, not good."