eevil question, an' you laugh in my face, which is not ceevil. In my
country we don't do that to anybody, far less a stranger. Noo, may pe,
you'll not know my broder, and there's no harm in that--none at all; but
you should shust have say so at once, an' there would be no more apout
it. Can none of you speak Gaelic?"

To this inquiry, which was understood to be such, there was a general
shaking of heads amongst the Spaniards.

"Oich, oich, it must be a tam strange country where there's no Gaelic.
But, never mind--you cannot help your misfortunes. I say, lads, will ye
teuk a tram. Hooch, hurra! prof, prof! Let's get a dram." And Donald
flung up one of his legs hilariously, while he gave utterance to these
uncouth expletives, which he did in short joyous shouts. "Where will we
go, lads? Did you'll know any decen' public-house, where we'll can
depend on a goot tram?"

To this invitation, and to the string of queries by which it was
accompanied, Donald got in reply only a repetition of that shake of the
head which intimated non-comprehension. But it was an instance of the
latter that surprised him more than all the others.

"Well, to be surely," he said, "if a man'll not understand the offer of
a tram, he'll understand nothing, and it's no use saying more. Put maybe
you'll understand the sign, if not the word." And, saying this, he
raised his closed hand to his lips and threw back his head, as if taking
off a _caulker_ of his own mountain dew; pointing, at the same time, to
a house which seemed to him to have the appearance of one of public
entertainment. To Donald's great satisfaction, he found that he had now
made himself perfectly intelligible; a fact which he recognised in the
smiles and nods of his auditory, and, still more unequivocally, in the
general movement which they made after him to the "public-house," to
which he immediately directed his steps.

At the head, then, of this troop of tatterdemallions, and walking with
as stately a step as a drum-major, Donald may be said to have made his
entrance into Madrid; and rather an odd first appearance of that worthy
there, it certainly was. On entering the tavern or inn which he had
destined for the scene of his hospitalities, he strode in much in
the same style that he would have entered a public-house in
Lochaber--namely, slapping the first person he met on the shoulder, and
shouting some merry greeting or other appropriate to the occasion. This
precisely Donald d