e could possibly have had at home, or perhaps better.

Towards midnight Luis knew, by the signals cautiously given at the
turning-box, that the women were all there; whereupon he and Loaysa went
down from the loft with the guitar, complete in all its strings and well
tuned. The maestro asked how many were there to hear him, and was told
that all the women in the house were there, except their lady, who was
in bed with her husband. This was not what Loaysa wished for,
nevertheless, by way of making a beginning and obliging his pupil, he
touched the guitar softly, and drew from it such tones as ravished the
ears of his audience. But who could describe the delight of the women
when he sang _Pesame de ello_, and followed it up with the magic strains
of the saraband, then new in Spain? There was not one of them that did
not keep time to the music as if she were dancing like mad, but all
noiselessly and with extreme caution, keeping scouts on the watch to
warn them if the old man awoke. Loaysa finally played them several
seguidillas, and so put the climax to his success, that they all eagerly
begged the negro to tell them who was this marvellous musician. Luis
replied that he was a poor beggar, but the most gallant and genteel man
in all the back slums of Seville. They conjured the negro to contrive
some means that they might see him, and not to let him quit the house
for a fortnight, for they would take care to supply him with the best of
good cheer, and plenty of it. They were curious to know how Luis had
managed to get him into the house; but to this the negro made no reply.
For the rest he told them that if they wanted to see the maestro, they
might bore a small hole in the turning-box and afterwards stop it up
with wax; and that as for keeping him in the house, he would do his
best.

Loaysa then addressed them, and offered them his services in such
obliging and polite terms, that they were sure such fine language never
came out of the head of a poor beggar. They entreated he would come the
next night, and they would prevail on their lady to come down and hear
him, in spite of the light sleep of her lord and master--the result not
so much of his age as of his extreme jealousy. Loaysa replied that if
they wished to hear him without fear of being surprised by the old man,
he would give them a powder to put in his wine, which would make him
sleep more soundly. "Good heaven!" cried one of the damsels, "if that
were true, wha