“We will drink,” he cried, “to everything Spanish, muchachas, ollas, dons, torrones, and fondas, and confusion to all interlopers. Isn’t this jolly little place better than the Maria Cristina? Isn’t the company more friendly and far more diverting? See the notary and the doctor at the table near the door; at the next, the priest and the professor (they’re both taking snuff); that fat, military man with the green gloves is a colonel of infantry. Those swell English officers you admired so much at the Reina Cristina simply own the hotel! We’re admitted to the smoking and billiard rooms purely on sufferance. I like your inn best, Don Jaime.”
“Ah, well,” said the Don, “I like bath every morning, and all that luxushness when I stayed at the Reina, though it was much pain to put on cocktail coat every night for dinner.”
“Treasure every gem of speech he lets fall,” murmured Patsy, “they grow rarer—don’t you notice?—as his English comes back to him.”
“He’s always been like that,” said J., “it’s because he learned English when he was young.” “Some days he speaks as well as you or I, then again he talks a hodge podge no man can understand.”
“What’s the matter with the wine, Don?” cried Patsy. “You don’t like it.”
“Wine is not agreeable to my belly,” said the Don. “I will take to keep you company, un poco de ginebra, de campaña, with much water.”
“You must not expect ice,” Patsy explained.
“You will not hanker for it,” said the Don, taking a clay water bottle from the shelf behind him. “This alcarraza is—how you say? holey—no, porous, keeps water as cold as you might drink him, by evaporation.” He poured out the water and put the alcarraza back. It had a rounded bottom and could not stand upright. The Romans used the same kind of vessel; you see them at Pompeii. They were made in this shape because they were used to pour libations of lustral water to Vesta, and would have been defiled if they had been set down on the ground.
By this time the fruit was put on the table. All the other guests had left the room except the priest and the professor, who were playing a game of dominoes. A large melon was placed before J. He looked at me as he cut it:
“You remember what I have always said? Till you come to Spain it is impossible to know what a melon can be.”