t not been for the "luck of the Dream-Book," Carmona
and his party would have been far away last night when we arrived at
Manzanares. Had I not been tortured by doubts about the fate of my letter,
I might have been philosopher enough to say: "Patience, until Seville!"

As it was, patience was the last virtue I could cultivate; and for what
remained of that day, I was unable to find the smallest pleasure in
motoring.

Again we were on the highroad between Madrid and Seville; yet the waving
ruts and ridges of hardened mud were sprinkled with a green glaze of
grass, as if in treacherous attempt at concealment. Dust curled behind us
like smoke, creeping under the tarpaulin that covered our luggage on the
roof, and into our suit-cases, powdering our clothing like fine white
sugar.

Despite the good springs and deep cushions of the car, Pilar's light body
danced up and down, as Dick said, like a bit of American popcorn over a
hot fire; and our two guests, who had thought themselves motor
enthusiasts, did not respond ardently to Dick's forced praises of the
sport.

How glorious, said he (every other word emphasized with a bump), how
glorious not to be bound down to the fixed and inconvenient hours of
trains. To stop where and when you like; to start on again when you
choose; never to have your view of the choicest bit of scenery blotted out
in a tunnel; to be grimed by no railway smoke; always to feel your face
fanned by a fresh breeze, tingling with ozone; to read--if you had the
seeing eye--the whole life of the country in writing on the road; the
tracks of heavy carts; the delicate prints of donkey's feet, trotting to
market laden with wine or fruit; the tracing of diligence wheels, or
old-fashioned carriages on their way to a bull-fight; the footmarks of
peasants economically carrying their shoes over their shoulders; the
clover-like imprint of sheeps' little hoofs, and goats'; the pads of
shepherd dogs. To flash through kinematographic glimpses of vineland and
oliveland, and graceful blue mountain shapes; to see strange villages of
whose existence you would never know when plodding along by train; to fly
from one living reminder of Don Quixote to another, as we were doing
to-day (had we not seen the inn where he was knighted?)--Bang! Never before
can I remember hailing with delight the pistol-like report which can mean
but one thing; the bursting of a tyre. But I was enchanted that Dick's
eloquence should be interrupt