e to take them. The currency of any coinage, except gold,
depends entirely upon the faith of those who pass and take it and has no
reference to its intrinsic value; and, in southern Spain, the leaden
dollars serve as counters for just as many commercial transactions as the
dollars made of silver. The only difference is that they are commonly
accepted only after protest. In every Spanish shop, a slab of marble is
built into the counter, and on this slab all proffered coins are slapped
before they are accepted by the merchant. The traveler soon learns to
fling his change upon the pavement; and many merry arguments ensue
regarding the _timbre_ of their ring. I remember how once, in the wondrous
town of Ronda, when a beggar had imposed himself upon me as a guide and
led me into a church where High Mass was being chanted, I gave him a
peseta to get rid of him, and at once he flung it upon the pavement of the
church, and chased it, listening, across the nave. Thereafter, he
protested loudly that the piece was lead, and disrupted the intoning of
the priests. "Very well," said I, "it is, in any case, a gift; if you
don't want it, I will take it back": and he accepted it with bows and
smiles, and allowed the weary priests to continue their intonings. But
Bobadilla is the one place in southern Spain where money is never jingled
upon marble. There is no time between trains to quibble over minor
matters; and a "Sevillan dollar" accepted from one passenger is blithely
handed to another who is traveling in the opposite direction. I discovered
this fact on the occasion of my first visit to this interesting junction;
and on subsequent occasions I have eaten my fill at one or another of the
railway restaurants and settled the account with all the leaden money
garnered up from weeks of traveling. There is surely no dishonesty in
observing the custom of a country; and Bobadilla may be treasured by all
travelers as a clearing-house for counterfeit coins.

Again, in northern France, it was merely by some accident of changing
trains that I discovered the lovely little town of Dol. I found myself in
Saint Malo, for obvious reasons; and I desired to go to Mont Saint-Michel,
for reasons still more obvious--Mother Poulard's omelettes, and
architecture, and the incoming of the tide. Between them--the map told
me--was situated Dol. I made inquiries of the porter in the Saint Malo
hotel. He responded in English,--the English of _Ici on parle anglais_