If we had been bent on picking up antiquities, we might have found some nice things in the quarter where the refuse of the churches is gathered. There was a Madonna dressed in a fine silk robe, standing in a little shrine, a cherub’s head in carved wood, a gilded ciborium, a carved bas-relief of Santa Justa and Santa Rufina, the patrons of Seville.
It was a sharp, clear day, we stopped to warm our hands at a fire of fagots kindled on the bare ground in the middle of an old book stall. A pale, near-sighted priest, on the other side of the fire, stood first on one leg then on the other, drawing up one foot at a time under his gown for warmth. He had his long nose between the leaves of a parchment book, and looked absurdly like a learned crane as he shifted from foot to foot.
The firelight brought out now one name, now another, as the flames flickered and the light played along the backs of the old books. On a sudden the immortal name Don Quixote leapt from the shadow in letters of gold. You can always pick up the best books cheap because, like bread, they are among the necessaries of life.
“Bayard Taylor’s Voyage to Japan! I never knew he went to Japan. It looks so lonely among all these Spanish books, I must rescue it!” said Patsy. Don Luis bought him the volume for three perros chicos.
“Here’s your Spanish and English dictionary,” said Patsy, who has the scent of a ferret for old books. “How much for the dictionary?” The dealer, a lean, dyspeptic man in black, who looked like his kind the world over,—the old bookman is a type apart,—sold us the dictionary, a large, clean and most precious book, for four pesetas. A shabby photograph album stood on the shelf next the dictionary. As Patsy opened it, a photograph fell from the torn leaves. Don Luis picked it up.
“Pobrecita!” he showed the faded photograph of a young girl in the dress of thirty years ago. He turned it over and read what was written on the back.
“Mi Corazon!”
“What a lovely face!” said Patsy.
“Too lovely to be sold for old paper!” Don Luis crushed the photograph in his hand, threw it on the fire, and watched it burn till nothing was left but blackened cardboard.
In an old print shop, among heaps of dusty engravings, stood a picture of a Roman model in a ciociara shirt. The canvas had a hole knocked in it and lacked a frame.