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CORDOBA ne
“Are you speaking Danish now?”
“No, it is meant to be Spanish.”
“Excellent Spanish,’ they hasten to’ assure me
courteously. “‘But—isn’t it France? or North Amer-
ica?—England perhaps?” The expressions of their
faces show that they have exhausted their whole map
of earth.
“No,” say I, offended, “it is an independent coun-
try, and a country with rich soil—a real tub of butter.
If you used butter in your porridge as other civilized
nations do, you would not be ignorant of Denmark:
the entire civilized world takes the spread for its
bread from us. And we have a real king of our own.”
They do not say outright that I am lying abomi-
nably, but their glances give them away. Fortunately
I can prove my statement. I produce a Spanish news-
paper and run through the telegrams. Here you have
it in print: “King Oscar of Denmark desires to abdi-
cate in favor of his eldest son.” The sheet goes from
hand to hand, until it finally reaches, in the third com-
partment from us, a man who is able to read. He
reads the item aloud, and there is a moment of silence.
“How big the world is after all,” one of the men
says, “and how remarkable!” And again all the
tongues are loosed.
My national pride has sustained a severe shock, but
I seek to collect myself. Once before in Granada a
postal official was also completely ignorant of my na-
tive country; and yet, the things I sent home by mail
arrived in due course. In fact, I cannot be certain that
I have ever met any one that really knew of Denmark
except a few German tourists who thought that we
spoke German at home. Our most important contri-
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