o Adonis."

"Adonis!" Don John laughed, not at the name, for it was familiar to him,
but at the mere mention of the person who bore it and who was the King's
dwarf jester, Miguel de Antona, commonly known by his classic nickname.
"Bring Adonis here--he is an old friend."

The door opened again, and Dolores heard the well-known voice of the
hunchback, clear as a woman's, scornful and full of evil laughter,--the
sort of voice that is heard instantly in a crowd, though it is not
always recognizable. The fellow came in, talking loud.

"Ave Caesar!" he cried from the door. "Hail, conqueror! All hail, thou
favoured of heaven, of man,--and of the ladies!"

"The ladies too?" laughed Don John, probably amused by the dwarfs
antics. "Who told you that?"

"The cook, sir. For as you rode up to the gate this afternoon a scullery
maid saw you from the cellar grating and has been raving mad ever since,
singing of the sun, moon, and undying love, until the kitchen is more
like a mad-house than this house would be if the Day of Judgment came
before or after Lent."

"Do you fast in Lent, Adonis?"

"I fast rigidly three times a day, my lord conqueror,--no, six, for I
eat nothing either just before or just after my breakfast, my dinner,
and my supper. No monk can do better than that, for at those times I eat
nothing at all."

"If you said your prayers as often as you fast, you would be in a good
way," observed Don John.

"I do, sir. I say a short grace before and after eating. Why have you
come to Madrid, my lord? Do you not know that Madrid is the worst, the
wickedest, the dirtiest, vilest, and most damnable habitation devised by
man for the corruption of humanity? Especially in the month of November?
Has your lordship any reasonable reason for this unreason of coming
here, when the streets are full of mud, and men's hearts are packed like
saddle-bags with all the sins they have accumulated since Easter and
mean to unload at Christmas? Even your old friends are shocked to see so
young and honest a prince in such a place!"

"My old friends? Who?"

"I saw Saint John the Conqueror graciously wave his hand to a most
highly respectable old nobleman this afternoon, and the nobleman was so
much shocked that he could not stir an arm to return the salutation! His
legs must have done something, though, for he seemed to kick his own
horse up from the ground under him. The shock must have been terrible.
As for me, I laughed aloud, which