he came back and asked
him to follow him.

They went down a small passage and up a staircase, which was at the
end, and then along a corridor on the main floor. On one side of this
corridor, in his cell, they found Father Herreros.

Caesar, after bowing and introducing himself, sat down, as the monk
asked him to do, in a chair with its back to the light. Caesar began to
explain why he had come, and as he had prepared what he was going to
say, he employed his attention, while speaking, on the cage and the kind
of big bird which were before his eyes.

Father Herreros had a big rough head, black heavy eyebrows, a short
nose, an enormous mouth, yellow teeth, and grey hair. He wore a
chocolate-coloured robe, open enough to show his whole neck down to his
chest. The movement of the good monk's lips was that of a man who wished
to pass for keen and insinuating. His robe was dirty and he doubtless
had the habit of leaving cigarette stubs on the table.

The cell had one window, and in front of it a bookcase. Caesar made an
effort to read the titles. They were almost all Latin books, the kind
that nobody reads.

Father Herreros began to ask Caesar questions. In his brain, he was
doubtless wondering why Cardinal Fort's nephew should come to him.

After many useless words they got to the concrete point that Caesar
wanted to take up, Father Herreros's acquaintance in Spain, and the monk
said that he knew a very rich widow who had property in Toledo. When
Caesar went to Madrid, he would give him a letter of recommendation to
her.

"I cannot keep you any longer now, because a Mexican lady is waiting for
me," said Father Herreros.

Caesar arose, and after shaking the monk's fat hand, he left the
convent. He returned to Rome on foot, crossing the river again, and
looking at the Tiberine island; and arrived without hurrying at the
hotel. He wrote to his friend Azugaray, requesting him to discover, by
the indications he gave him, who the rich widow that had property in
Toledo could be.

_THE LICENTIATE MIRO_

The next day Caesar decided to pursue his investigations, and went to
see Father Miro.

Father Miro lived in a college in the Via Monserrato. Caesar inspected
the map of Rome, looking for that street, and found that it is located
in the vicinity of the Campo de' Fiori, and took his way thither.

The spring day was magnificent; the sky was blue, without a cloud; the
tiled roofs of some of the palaces were decorate