Neapolitan knew must mean the theatre of San Carlo, the paradise of his
countrymen, but he never could fancy his wife should be there in his
absence. She was though, for presently the boy said, "And there I see the
woman in the blue jacket, with a man in a red coat whispering into her
ear." "The devil!" muttered the Neapolitan to himself.

"Look again! and tell me what you see now," said the magician.

"I can hardly see at all," replied the boy, looking into the palm of his
hand very closely, "it is so dark; but now I see a long street, and a
large building with iron gratings, and more than a dozen skulls stuck at
one corner of it, and a little farther on I see a large wide gate, and
beyond it a long road; and now I see the woman in the blue, and the man in
the red jacket, turning down the second street to the left of the road,
and now there is an old woman opening * * *"

"I will hear no more!" bawled the Neapolitan, who had heard but too
correctly described the approach to the "stews" of Naples: and he struck
the boy's hand with such violence against his face that it flattened his
nose.

The charm was thus dissolved; but the correctness of the magician's
revelation was tolerably well corroborated, when some time after the
Neapolitan suddenly appeared at his home at the Torre del Greco, and
learned that his wife had disappeared with a corporal of the guards.

(_To be concluded in our next_.)

* * * * *