It was as though Palma had determined to reveal herself at her best to our companion. Even the interior of the Cathedral, lit by the brilliant sunshine that filtered through the stained-glass windows, seemed grander than ever.
"I've had a splendid time," the captain said when we parted. "Though I've been here two or three times, I never saw so much of the town before."
We were leaving next morning for Miramar, and before our return the _Ancona_ would have sailed. But we said good-bye with the promise of meeting again--a promise that was fulfilled, for on two subsequent voyages the captain was a welcome guest at the Casa Tranquila.
"The captain is a gentleman," the Boy said half-a-dozen hours later when he returned from the ship, where, by special invitation, he had been having a smoke and a chat with her master. "See what he insisted on giving me. I refused, of course, but he made me take _that_ and _this_."
"That" was a batch of thrice precious literature in the shape of sixpenny editions of novels and magazines. "This" was a tin of tobacco marked "full strength," that class of dark-complexioned rum-odorous tobacco that the Boy specially affects, and whose lack in Majorca had formed the theme of his only regret.
Life on the native craft in the port is entertaining to watch. The dark-skinned rovers of the deep contrast so oddly with the mildly domestic aspect given by the presence on board of the _patrón's_ wife, and by her way of keeping hens loose on deck, and of hanging feminine garments to dry on the poop.
One Sunday morning we had been scrutinizing their doings with the open stare that life in Spain teaches one both to give and to take composedly, when we discovered that luncheon-time had stolen unawares upon us. As we walked back down the pier we glanced inquiringly at the cafés that lined the lower part of the way; they were all crowded with jovial seamen and uninviting. We had resolved to eat at the Lirico, and were leaving the pier, when something in the situation of a little open-air eating-place just on the brink of the sea, almost in the shadow of the city wall, attracted us; and advancing to the awning, under which little groups of people were seated, we demanded food.