As it seemed advisable not to go to this
extreme till I got to Madrid, my kind young banker put himself at my
disposal for any other service I could imagine from him; but I searched
myself in vain for any desire, much less necessity, and I parted from
him at the door of his bank with the best possible opinion of the
Basques. I suppose he was a Basque; at any rate, he was blond, which the
Spaniards are mostly not, and the Basques often are. Now I am sorry,
since he was so kind, that I did not get him to read me the Basque
inscription on the front of his bank, which looked exactly like that on
the bank at Bayonne; I should not have understood it, but I should have
known what it sounded like, if it sounded like anything but Basque.
Everybody in San Sebastian seemed resolved to outdo every other in
kindness. In a shop where we endeavored to explain that we wanted to get
a flat cap which should be both Basque and red, a lady who was buying
herself a hat asked in English if she could help us. When we gladly
answered that she could, she was silent, almost to tears, and it
appeared that in this generous offer of aid she had exhausted her whole
stock of English.
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