Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-39.djvu/490

480 enough. I found it at once. The stock in trade was insignificant. A single board had heaped up on it miscellaneous goods. For a background, on a butcher's rack were suspended a variety of things. It was nothing more than a Spanish junk-shop. A brace of rusty swords, a blunderbuss, an old saddle, a cruel-looking bit, a mule's tufted head-stall, three guitars in various degrees of smash, hung from the hooks. On the board, an old door which stood on trestles, was a bronze crucifix worth the price of the metal, a brass barber's basin, the cast-off jacket of some bull-fighter, with its tawdry velvet and lack-lustre spangles, the works of a clock, a peasant's hat, a tray of shells, a rosary or two, and a leather Cordovan cushion with a tear in it. There was not a single book. A dirty old woman appeared suddenly, and made for me at once. "What would the gentleman buy? Everything was very precious. The swords were of the time of the Cid. Would the noble gentleman come inside? She had a picture to show which was wonderful"

I wanted some souvenir of Seville, and, seeing a small earthen-ware crock of Moorish form, gaudy in color, picked it up, but it disclosed a badly-mended crack. Then I handled the brass basin. It was imperfect, having several holes in it. I put it back in its place and stood it on what I took to be a block of old wood. As I touched the latter I found it was leather and had the semblance of a book, the back of it being towards me. The leather had dropped off of it, but that old stitching, which defied time, was still solid. It looked venerable; but I had handled a thousand old fellows of the same kind, only good for the paper-mill. I touched it again; but no sooner had I done so than I felt an electric thrill pass through my arm. Account for it as you please, there is some occult sympathy between mind and matter.

"How much for this old basin with holes through it like a sieve?" I asked.

The old woman mentioned a price about equivalent to forty-five cents, and added, "There is not such another in all Spain. What are a few holes? Solder will stop them up; then you can furbish it up until it shines like gold."

I took up the basin, lifting up the book with it. It was what is known as a pot-quarto. On a fragment of leather, hanging by a filament, I made out a portion of what must have been a commonplace title,—"" I had seen cart-loads of books of the sixteenth century with this meaningless title. With seeming indifference I fluttered the leaves. I was, somehow or other, feverish with impatience. It was, of course, all in Latin. A bound-up volume composed of tracts, papers, dissertations on abstract religious questions