In Troubador-Land | Page 7

London, or let me come abroad and live in your house away from my husband and that child. You were so sensible and so kind. I can't bear to be longer here in the house with my husband and the spoiled child."
My friend looked disconsolately at me.
"What am I to do?" he asked. "She writes ebery week, and I don't answer. And my wife sends on dese letters."
"Do?" said I. "Send this one at once to Madame Cohen, and ask her to answer it for you. That London lady will never trouble you again."
The following circumstance I relate, not that it has the smallest importance except as a characteristic sketch of Italian dolce far niente, and as a lesson to travellers. The proper study of mankind is man, and a little incident such as occurred to me, and which I will now relate, raises the curtain and shows us a feature of humanity in Italy. When I hurried from Rome, I sent off all my luggage by goods train to England, except such articles as I could compress into a Gladstone bag; a change of raiment of course was there. But mark the cruelty of fate. My foot slipped on a white marble stair, and I rent a certain garment at the knee. I at once dived into my Gladstone bag and produced another pair, but found with a shock that they also had suffered--become threadbare, and needed attention from a tailor. What was to be done? I had to leave Florence at noon. The discovery was made the night before. I rose early, breakfasted early, and hung about the shop door of a tailor at 8 A.M. till the door was opened, when I entered, stated my case, and the obliging sartore promised that the trifling remedy should be applied and I should have my garment again in one hour. "In one hour!" he said, holding up his hand in solemn asseveration.
Nine o'clock came; then ten, and my raiment had not returned. I flew to the tailor's shop and asked for my garment. "It was all right," said he, "only the thread being knotted. It should be sent to my inn." So I returned and waited. I had my lunch, paid my bill, packed my bag, looked at my watch. The omnibus was at the door. No garment. I ran to the tailor's. He listened to my tale of distress with an amiable smile on his face, then volunteered to come with me to my inn, and talk the matter over with the host. Accordingly he locked up his shop and sauntered with me to Bonciani's. Bonciani and he considered the circumstances at length, thrashed the subject thoroughly. Then, as the horses were being put into the omnibus--"Come," said the tailor, "I have a brother, a grocer, we will go to him."
"But why?" asked I. "Do you see, the boxes are being put on the omnibus. I want my--garment."
"You must come with me to my brother's," said the tailor. So to the grocer's went we. Vainly did I trust that the journeyman who was engaged on my article of apparel lodged there, and that, done or undone, I could recover it thence. But no--not so. The whole story was related with embellishments to the brother, the grocer, who listened, discussed, commented on, the matter.
"There goes the 'bus!" I shouted, looking down the street. "Even now, if you will let me have the article, I can run to the station and get off; I have my ticket."
"Subito! subito!" said the tailor.
Then the grocer said that the thing in request might be sent by post. "But," I replied, "I am going into France, to Nice, and clothes are subjected to burdensome charges if carried across the frontier."
"Ten minutes!" I gasped. "Almost too late."
A moment later--
"Appunto!"
"The clock is striking. I am done for."
"Appunto!" and he lighted a cigarette.
So I had to travel by night, instead of by day.

CHAPTER II.
THE RIVIERA.
No ill without a counterbalancing advantage--An industry peculiar to Italy--Italian honesty--Buffalo Bill at Naples--The Prince and the straw-coloured gloves--The Riviera--A tapestry--Nice--Its flowers--Notre Dame--The chateau--My gardener--A pension of ugly women--Horses and their hats--Antibes--Meeting of Honoré IV. and Napoleon--The Grimaldis--Lérins, an Isle of Saints--A family jar--Healed.
That was not all. The dawdling of the tailor not only made me lose the mid-day train, but delayed my arrival in Nice for twenty-four hours. I took the night train to Pisa, where I purposed catching the express from Rome. But the express came slouching along in a hands-in-the-pocket sort of way, and was over half-an-hour late, and would not bestir itself to pick up the misspent, lost moments between Pisa and Genoa, the consequence of which was that the train for Nice had gone on without waiting, and accordingly those who desired to prosecute their journey in that