Even at Irun, where we arrived in Spain from Bayonne, there began at
once to be temperamental differences which ought to have wrought against
my weird misgivings of my whereabouts. Only in Spain could a customs
inspector have felt of one tray in our trunks and then passed them
all with an air of such jaded aversion from an employ uncongenial to
a gentleman. Perhaps he was also loath to attempt any inquiry in that
Desperanto of French, English, and Spanish which raged around us; but
the porter to whom we had fallen, while I hesitated at our carriage door
whether I should summon him as _Mozo_ or _Usted,_ was master of that
_lingua franca_ and recovered us from the customs without question on
our part, and understood everything we could not, say. I like to think
he was a Basque, because I like the Basques so much for no reason that
I can think of. Their being always Carlists would certainly be no reason
with me, for I was never a Carlist; and perhaps my liking is only a
prejudice in their favor from the air of thrift and work which pervades
their beautiful province, or is an effect of their language as I first
saw it inscribed on the front of the Credit Lyonnais at Bayonne. It
looked so beautifully regular, so scholarly, so Latin, so sister to both
Spanish and Italian, so richly and musically voweled, and yet remained
so impenetrable to the most daring surmise, that I conceived at once
a profound admiration for the race which could keep such a language
to itself. When I remembered how blond, how red-blond our sinewy young
porter was, I could not well help breveting him of that race, and
honoring him because he could have read those words with the eyes that
were so blue amid the general Spanish blackness of eyes. He imparted a
quiet from his own calm to our nervousness, and if we had appealed to
him on the point I am sure he would have saved us from the error of
breakfasting in the station restaurant at the deceitful _table d’hote,_
though where else we should have breakfasted I do not know.