have been combination, and that among the members of the aristocracy of
Naples. The Italian papers did not mention this in a tone of disgust, but
rather in one of surprise that Italians should have been able to overreach
a Yankee. But I do not believe such a fraud would have been perpetrated at
Rome, Florence, or Milan. It was considered quite in its place at Naples.

A lady of my acquaintance was staying in a pension at Naples. There resided
at the time, in the same pension, a prince--Neapolitan, be it understood.
One day, just before she left, she brought in a packet of kid gloves she
had purchased, among them one pair, straw-coloured. She laid them on the
table, went out for two minutes, leaving the prince in the room with the
gloves. On her return, the prince and the straw-coloured gloves were gone.
She made inquiries of the landlady, who, when told that the prince had been
in the room, laughed and said: "But of course he has them. You should never
leave anything in the room unguarded where there is a prince." Two days
after the departure of this lady, the straw-coloured gloves were produced
by his highness and presented by him to a young lady whom he admired, then
in the same pension.

No evil comes without a counterbalancing good. The day I was detained in
Florence by that tailor, and the loss of the night train at Genoa were not
immense evils. A furious gale broke over the coast, and when at seven in
the morning we steamed out of Genoa, the Mediterranean was sullen, the
rain poured down, and the mountains were enveloped in vapour. But as we
proceeded along the coast the weather improved, and before long every cloud
was gone, the sky became blue as a gentian, and the oranges flamed in the
sunshine as we swept between the orchards. Had I gone by the noon train
from Florence I should have travelled this road by night, had I caught the
3.27 A.M. train I should have seen nothing for storm and cloud. And--what
a glorious, what an unrivalled road that is! It was like passing through a