I found on my left, at the top of a little flight of steps, a house that was for the most part untouched by the general havoc around and about it.

The lower windows were cracked and the door open and gaping, but there stood, quite bravely with new paint, the word "_Restoration_" on the lintel and there were even curtains about the upper windows.

Passing through the door we found a room decently clean, and behind the little bar a stout red-faced Galician in white shirt and grey trousers, a citizen of the normal world.

We were just then his only customers.

We asked him for tea and sat down at a little table in the corner of the room.