TWO STORIES
By
The Road to Dunmore"" and ""The Key"" are linked by common authorship, little else. The first's a sly sportive anecdote: a boy urged by his father to keep his violin handy at all times finds it comes in handy in cadging cart rides (and prompting a recalcitrant donkey). That one, is set in the presumptive past, ostensibly in England; the second is longer, slower and locale-colored, a Basque peasant-landlord scuffle. Because Don Manuel has decided to close his well to the local women, Paco's Aunt Maria steals the key to the cabinet containing the robes for his investiture in the Great Order of the Winegrowers. Paco hides the key in a melon which disappears, has all sorts of trouble recovering it, finally reproaches Don Manuel for his perfidy and offers to trade key for continued use of the well. Don Manuel, abashed, admits that he was misled by his overseer and determines to do better. Raise glassess. . . In the genre, pleasant and relaxed, but no match for the first: the difficulty of selling two separate stories is compounded by the improbability of finding a common audience.