_ We had still to learn
that if there is a _patio_ in a Spanish hotel you cannot have rooms in
it, because they are either in repair or they are occupied. In the
present case they were occupied; but we could have rooms over the
street, which were the same as in the _patio,_ and which were perfectly
quiet, as we could perceive from the trolley-cars grinding and squealing
under their windows. The manager (if that was the quality of the patient
and amiable old official who received us) seemed surprised to see the
cars there, perhaps because they were so inaudible; but he said we could
have rooms in the annex, fronting on the adjoining plaza and siding on
an inoffensive avenue where there were absolutely no cars. The
interior, climbing to a lofty roof by a succession of galleries, was
hushed by four silent senoras, all in black, and seated in mute ceremony
around a table in chairs from which their little feet scarcely touched
the marble pavement. Their quiet confirmed the manager's assurance of a
pervading tranquillity, and though the only bath in the annex was
confessedly on the ground floor, and we were to be two floors above, the
affair was very simple: the chambermaid would always show us where the
bath was.
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