In these backward countries the domestic mattress is remade once a year if not oftener.

In our great land there is a considerable vagueness as to the period allowed to a mattress to form itself into lumps and to accumulate dust or germs.

Moreover, there are thousands of exemplary housekeepers who throw up the eye of horror to their whitewashed ceiling at the thought of a foreign person's personal habits, who do not know what is inside their mattress and never think of looking to see from year's end to year's end.
In Spain, a country rarely visited by those persons who pride themselves upon being particular, the mattress-maker is a much more necessary factor in domestic life than is the sweep or the plumber in northern lands.

No palace is too royal for him, no cottage is too humble to employ him.
He is, moreover, the only man allowed inside a nunnery.

Which is the reason why he finds himself brought into prominence now.