European acquaintance : being sketches of people in Europe

Chapter I. Florence To Venice

Cause of my Travels. — The Cafe Doner. — Greenough sends me to Graefenberg. — The Road to Venice. — A misplaced Station-house. — A scanty Purse. — An amphibious Omnibus. — The Albergo d'Europa. — Sight-seeing. — The Cities of tiie Poets Page 5

Chapter II. In Venice

Fellow-countrymen. — A Conversation on Hydropathy. — Difficulty with the Police. — D'Arcy's Controversy with the Police. — D'Arcy and Horace Greeley. — A dangerous Broadbrim. — The Austrian Empire saved. — The terrific Hat of Signor Budd. — Condition of Lombardy under Austria 12

Chapter III. To Graefenberg

Trieste.— A beautiful Land.— Hanging one's Head up.— Radetzky. — The Hotels of Vienna. — Suspicious Politeness. — German in one easy Lesson. — Vienna to Herrmanstadt. — Inquiries concerning Priessnitz. — A friendly Native. — To Freiwaldau. — The Golden Star 22

Chapter IV. Installation At Graefenberg

A Walk to Graefenberg.— A Land of Lunatics.— The Establishment. — Bad Odors. — Cheap Accommodations. — An Ox-stable for a Bed-room. — A sensitive Russian. — A strong Dinner for weak Stomachs. — The Emperor and the Dough Balls. — Cool Slumbers.... 30

Chapter V. First Difs In Graefenberg

Priessnitz.— The wet Packing.— An awful Cellar.— Scared Patients. —Rubbing and Scrubbing.— The Air-bath.— Thin Raiment.— Water-logged.— The Walks and Fountains. — A Patent Digester.— Breakfast.— Cups, Canes, and Fanaticism.— A multitudinous Ugliness 37

Chapter VI. Certain Graefenbergers

Franz theBathman.— The human Owl.— The cracked Hungarian.—

11 CONTENTS.

The Hamburg Merchant. — Burroughs. — The Prussian Lady. — Georgian Hospitality. — Two Graefenherg Veterans. — A rummy Hydropath. — Stripping to it. — The pretty Countess Page 46

Chapter VII. Graefenbergesses And Graefenbergianisms

Native Beauties. — The Strawberry Girls. — The weekly Balls. — A mixed Company. — Eccentric Dancers. — The Priessnitz Family. — A Squall at a Ball. — A placable Duelist. — An Englishman's Method of cutting a Friend 54

Chapter VIII. Farewell To Graefenberg

Eccentric Hospitals.— The Curd Cure. — The Straw Cure. — The Wine Cure. — A lively Patient. — Freezing out an Inflammation of the Lungs. — Ducking a Fever and Ague. — Priessnitz's Prudence. — A remarkable Cure. — My own Case. — Farewell to Graefenherg 63

Chapter IX. Difonne, Or Mermaniiood In France

Short Account of a long Journey. — A disappointed Sight Seer. — Geneva to Divonne. — Mrs. Parley the Porter. — The Doctor. — Poche's Dictionary. — Trompette. — The Establishment. — Dinner and its Devourers. — First Bath at Divonne. — Francois the Bathman. — Learning French 60

Chapter X. Tastiiies In Divonne

A Quadrille. — Cat and Rat. — A French Game. — The Juba. — A reverend Double-shuffler. — Ida. — Morning Service. — Des Mcthodistes. — A strong-minded Lady. — The Free Kirk on the Continent. — A reverend Sabbath-breaker. — Scenery about Divonne. — Sunsets and Sunrises. — Nyon and Maitre Jacques. — Catholic versus Protestant 80

, CHAPTER XL

PERSONS AND POLITICS IN DIVONNE.

Aristocratic Invalids. — Observations on Nobilities. — The Count of Divonne. — The Baron de Pres. — An Italian Hero. — Threatenings of a Duel. — Male Kisses. — French Opinions of English Manners. — Winter. — Making Tracks. — Learning French. — My Teacher. — Friendly Warnings. — The Coup d'etat. — A fugitive Republican. — Stirring Reports. — Tyranny triumphant. — The Elections. — A liberal Lawyer and an illiberal Prefect. — The French Peasantry.. 91

Chapter XII. Winter In Divonne

Snows and Mists. — The Northers. — Ennui. — Concerning Trompette.

CONTENTS. iii

— Concerning our Sheep. — Concerning Monsieur Trocon. — French Egotism. — Trocon's Fight for Liberty. — His Duel. — His Quarrel with the Priest. — A French Theorist. — Polemics on Religion and Politics. — The Immorality of Retailing Page 108

Chapter XIII. Spring In Divonne

New Arrivals. — Count de G .—Arrest Number One.— Arrest

Number Two. — Arrest Number Three. — Russian Nobles. — A speechless Princeling. — American Sympathies with Russians. — Prince Georges on Slavery. — The Princess Georges on Ditto.— Republicanism in Russia 123

Chapter XIV. Story-telling In Divonne

Stories of Travel. — Prince Eugene's Story of the Haunted Attic. — The Doctor's Story of the Haunted Room. — The Story of the Buried Treasure of Man try 135

Chapter XV. Mesmerism In Divonne

Conversations on Mesmerism. — The magnetic Button of Mr. Robson. — A conscious Somnambulist. — Jolivet's Diplomacy. — Mesmeric Experiences of a Russian Lady. — A second-sighted Servant-girl. — The Somnambula of Nyon. — Her Prophecy. — My Departure from Divonne 14?

Chapter XVI. A Cheap Avatering-place

Up Lake Leman. — A Patriotic American. — The Black and Blue Gentleman and his Black Trunk. — American Ignorance of foreign Tongues. — First Dinner at Bex. — A singular Lover. — The Irish Doctor and his remarkable Over-coat. — Moral Instruction to Youth. — The Nobility of Berne. — A Dialogue on Matrimony. — The Doctor's Farewell 163

Chapter XVII. Dinners And Diners At Paris

An old Comrade. — Of the Death of Priessnitz. — A Boarding-house. — Mrs. Keene. — Mrs. Keene's Economy. — Mrs. Keene's Brother. — Father Pipelet and Wife. — Making French easy. — A Tour through Parisian Restaurants. — The Cafe Jouffroy. — Superannuated Beaux. — A Table d'hote. — A fine old Gallic Gentleman. — Concerning Horsebeef. — A jolly Baron. — A Recollection of Beethoven... 177

Chapter XVIII. Florence And Its Cascine

The Charm of Florence. — The Cafe Doney. — Breakfast. — Long Giuseppe. — Enrichetta the Fioraia, — An envious Italiana. — Scissor-

IV CONTENTS.

ing a Woman. — The Institution of Flower-girls. — Cafe Prices in Florence. — The Cafe Wital. — Dinner at the Luna. — Bargaining with a Coachman. — To the Cascine. — A Music-day. — Beatrice. —The Crucifixion Page 191

Chapter XIX. Certain Florentine Loungers

Confessions of an Idler. — A Florentine Day. — Fruits and Wines. — A Florentine Evening. — Translating. — Loungers at the Cafe Done y. — Viardot. — Disappointed Love. — Buonacosta. — A Conversation on Fortune-hunting. — Bartoldi. — Cheap Dandyism. — A Cosmopolite 208

Chapter XX. Eccentrics And Eccentricities In Florence

John Bull Abroad. — Major O'Rourke. — Philosophy under Calamities. — A new Remedy for a Broken Heart. — Florentine Duels. — A Neapolitan Hero. — A Duel at Pisa. — Punishment of Dueling. — A Four-legged Florentine Gentleman. — A Clever Coachman. — Tout de suite. — A sacrilegious Blunder 222

CHAPTER XXL

MARIA AND HER STORIES.

Maria of Sienna. — Her Mother's Adventure with a Witch. — The Story of the Demon Goat.— The Story of the Midnight Mass.— The Adventure of Martino with Satanasso. — Maria's Bible. — The Sacrament of Columbus at Palos 235

Chapter XXII. Al Mezzogiorno

Florence to Rome. — Roman Bandits and Papal Dragoons. — Mine Host on the Monte Pincio. — Kissing the Pope's Toe. — Pio Nono's Opinion of Mustaches. — Tyranny in the Roman States. — A Canine Exemplar. — Prospects of Italian Liberty. — Continental domestic Architecture. — Italian Women. — Italian Lovers. — Manly Tears. — An Italian Reception. — An Italian Evening 251

Chapter XXIII. Acquaintance In Stone

Man's Creations his Acquaintance. — Disappointed Expectations. — Sensuous Influence of" Florence. — The Florentine Palaces. — The Campanile. — The Duomo. — Tomb of Michael Angelo. — The Saint George of Donatello. — The David of Michael Angelo. — The Mercury of Giovanni di Bologna. — Canova. — Tenerani. — The Descent from the Cross. — The Angel of the Last Judgment. — Emotional Life at Rome. — The Pantheon. — The Tombs of the Scipios. — Conclusion 265

EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE.

Chapter I. Florence To Venice

Puesued by the fretting enmity of a monotonous invalidism, I one day reached the triple saloon, the white pillars, and the marble-covered tables of the Cafe Doney in Florence. I was hob-a-nobbing with Gait, the sculptor, over a couple of ice-creams, when my companion looked up from his spoon, and addressed an individual who stood before us with a " Good evening, Mr. Greenough."

I rose and shook hands with a gentleman of agreeable air, though reserved and commanding, whose features were high and fine, whose eyes were of a stern gray, and whose full beard and mustache gave him all his natural grave manliness of aspect. Drawing a furred glove from his white taper fingers, Greenough sat down by us, and began to urge me with his rich voice and earnest manner to exchange the warm breezes of Italy for the cool waters of Graefenberg. Hydropathy, he thought, was the temple of health, and Priessnitz was its high priest, or rather its deity. He had spent eighteen months in the establishment at Graefenberg, beholding in that time marvelous cures, not on strangers only, but also on members of his own family. So fervent was his faith, that I finally accepted it as my own, and was persuaded to look for my lost health in the rivulets of Silesia, as Ponce de Leon sought his departed youth in Floridian fountains.

In the person of Neuville, a Virginian looker-on in Florence, and also a sufferer from some of the chronic nagrancies of nature, I found a fellow-traveler and codisciple in hydropathy. When we bade Greenough good-by, he gave us a letter of introduction to Priessnitz. Thanks be unto the merciful angel who veils from us futurity ! for it would have been a sombre parting had we known that we were never to see this fine artist and gentleman again. Before I returned to Florence, delirium and fever had torn his cunning hands from the marble, and swept his poetic spirit away to other visions than those of earthly beauty.

Through Bologna, Ferrara, Pavia, glancing from the prison of Tasso to the banquet-rooms of Este, from the chamber of Parasina to the dungeon of Hugo, from wonder-halls of painting to cathedrals of aged solemnity, we passed over the mountains and the broad, rich plains which separate Florence from Venice. A rail-road station now puffs its disrespectful smoke intermittently over the lagoons which glitter around the dethroned Queen of the Adriatic, and makes itself especially ridiculous by reminding the traveler of Vesuvius breathing out its fire and vapor over the Bay of Naples. It was twilight by the time we got out of the cars, and dim evening before we emerged from a passport -office looking toward the distant lights of Venice. Gondoliers bellowing from black gondolas wanted to carry us to the city, like undertakers with floating coffins desirous of conveying us to some seadeep cemetery. There was at first a contest among these amphibious gentry as to whether we should take a gondola or an omnibus ; but, unable to agree among themselves, or perhaps out of sheer good-nature, they finally left the matter to our decision. When I tell the poetic reader that we selected the omnibus, he will probably sniff with contempt and resolve to cut our acquaintance. But let him grant us his patience ; we had financial reasons for our choice : we were as hard up for cash as Mother Hubbard's dog for a bone. Having miscalculated traveling necessities at starting, our united pockets now contained the residuum of one zwanziger, or about fourteen cents. We might have flourished our letters of credit, to be sure ; but the gondoliers would have understood their value as little as that of the belles-lettres. The 'bus was half price ; the 'bus, we thought, would roll us straight to the hotel ; and so, in sultry disappointment, we declared for the prosaic 'bus. Off went our trunks with the agility of chairs and tables under the influence of old witches or modern spirits ; and, struggling after them through the noisy, eddying crowd, we reached a long covered boat, which looked as much like a gondola as a horse looks like a pony.

"Enter, gentlemen, enter; take your places under the canopy," said the master boatman, pointing with a warning finger to heavy clouds floating low in the twilight air. We got in cautiously, as people get into all tight places, knocked our knees together, knocked our hats together, and took the latter off.

" This isn't an omnibus," said Neuvillc, looking me gravely in the face at the distance of six inches.

"No; but I suppose we shall find it on the other side of the ferry, if this is a ferry."

" But what if we have to pay the ferry extra ?"

"Can't do it. That's their look-out. We must tell them they should have thought of that before, and have arranged matters better for gentlemen who only had a zwanziger."

Such was our desperate conversation, while trunks and individuals were being rammed into our pen until we were as close as little pigs riding to market. The boatmen took their places, and we glided out of the turmoil of gondolas, gondoliers, passengers, and policemen. Night had fallen by this time, sullen and starless, changing Venice into shapeless masses of shadow which sat mysteriously on dusky waters. A pattering of rain-drops, the monotonous dip of paddles, quick cries of men who passed us unseen like warning but invisible spectres, were the only jarrings on the wonderful silence. We knew that we were threading the avenues of a great city, and therefore the darkness appeared more ghostly, the stillness more supernatural ; therefore did it seem as if we were traversing no city of upper earth, but rather those " caverns measureless to man which run down to the sunless sea." Through the Grand Canal without knowing it, between rows of lofty palaces without beholding them, under the Kialto without a consciousness of its shadow, we passed noiselessly, blindly, like those who are ferried over the river of death. I felt a vague melancholy, an ineffable sorrow stealing over me, as if I were riding as chief mourner at my own funeral, and wondering whose turn would come next.

"It seems to me that it takes a great while to get to the omnibus," was my remark.

"I don't believe there is any omnibus," replied Neuville, with the indignation of outraged good faith.

Presently the bow of the boat grated against some stony obstacle, and we became conscious that our watery bier had ceased to advance.

"Behold us arrived," said the boat-master. "Behold the Albergo d'Europa."

I crushed my hat in the little doorway, straightened myself up, and bounded on to a broad flight of steps wet with the rippling of the canal. Above me rose gigantic stories of a palace front fretted with columns and pilasters, and casting red glares of light outward through deep windows and open balconies. Before it slept sombre waters, flickering here and there under lamp-flashes or the sparkle of a lost star-beam, and spreading solemnly away into an intensity of darkness and mystery, from some unknown shore of which shone other lights, as of fairy islands unattainable by human presences.

"Is this the hotel?" I questioned.

"Yes, gentlemen," responded a head-waiter in a white waistcoat; "this is the Hotel of Europe, at your service."

" But where is the omnibus ?" was the inquiry of my undiminished perplexity.

"You have just got out of the omnibus, gentlemen. That boat there is the omnibus."

" Oh," said I, turning to Neuville, "I thought that was the omnibus all the while."

"Of course you did," replied Neuville, scornfully; A 2

"it looks as much like an omnibus as an alligator looks like an elephant."

Having stared anew at the maritime vehicle, we told the waiter to pay for our passage, and walked into the hotel, wiser than before on the subject of omnibuses.

I have no intention of describing Venice at length, inasmuch as it has been visited by other travelers equally well provided with Murrays. We sailed in gondolas, visited the Arsenal, made an excursion to the Lido, paid a boatman to sing Tasso and lovesongs under the Rialto, and did various other things appropriate to the locality. We likened the fretted architecture of the palaces to a filigree of marble ; Saint Mark's, with its many domes and colors, to a mass of gigantic bubble-work ; the rich canvases of the Venetian painters to gorgeous sunsets hanging in the walls of the west ; the black gondolas, vanishing down watery avenues, to hearses borne along the dim naves of mighty cathedrals.

THE ISLAND CITY.

The midnight mariner with wondering eyes

Beholds a city on the Adrian waves, Whose palaces from ocean depths arise,

Like saintly shining souls from earthly graves.

The moonlight glorifies its vaulted fanes, Its proud pavilions and its dizzy towers ;

The lamplight from its arched windows rains Along the sea in ardent, trembling showers.

No whirring wheels, no clanging coursers sweep Beneath the shadows of its princely piles ;

But sombre barks, inaudible as sleep,

Glide down the silence of sea-paven aisles.

Discovered through its air of lucent balm, Though near, it seems mysterious and far ;

Its life is beautiful, unearthly, calm — An angel city of some sinless star.

So shines that splendid city of delight

Which poets build on Fancy's magic surge ;

Yet richer far, more delicately bright

Than cloud-wrought cities on the sunset's verge.

Most musical the sea around it chimes, Eesponsive to the mind-harps in its halls ;

Most fragrant breezes from all starry climes Uplift the standards on its shining walls.

And poet souls in barks of amethyst

Sail clown the ripple of those tides of love,

And feel their foreheads gently crowned and kiss'd By unseen angels bending from above.

joyous palaces ! heroic towers !

Eternal sculptures, passionate as fires !

Who leaveth earth ? Who voyageth with me?

Who lifteth sail in Poesy's rich air, To search Imagination's wonder-sea,

And find the poets' Island City there ?

Chapter II. In Venice

About a week after our arrival in Venice, while patrolling the colonnades of the Piazza San Marco, Neuville and I met a couple of fellow-countrymen, Irwine and Burroughs, Southerners, whom we had previously seen at Florence. As we had a stomach apiece, all empty at the moment, we adjourned for conversation to a restaurant handily situated in one of the palacefronted edifices which, on three sides, confront and ennoble the piazza.

" We are going to Graefenberg," said Neuville over his macaroni a la Milanese.

"We are going to Graefenberg," echoed Irwine over a glass of vino rosso.

"We shall take the cure," continued Neuville. "I suppose you try it also."

" Not a bit of it," replied Irwine. " Priessnitz will have to talk himself to death before he inveigles me into his tubs. I know all about those water privileges."

" Oh, you have been through the mill, then?"

" Not such a blockhead, if you please. But I have seen other people in the suds, and was satisfied with the simple spectacle. I went to an American water-cure with a friend, and was incautious enough to stay over-night. They stirred me up in the morning, and decoyed me, while I was half asleep, into a wet sheet.

I got out of it as quick as I could, and went off at a canter, in hopes of getting warm once more in my life. Came to a spring at last, among the brushwood ; a little dirty spring, with footmarks in the mud all about it. There was a sick minister and his wife, with their tin cups in their hands, looking at the spring and looking at the mud. The minister was very small in the legs and very much wrapped up about the head ; gave a fellow the idea of a fork standing on its tines. I thought of two chickens on a frosty morning staring at the snow, with one leg tucked up among the feathers. At last we all stepped gingerly into the mud, like cats, drank more than we wanted, and went off up the hills in very low spirits. When I got back to the house, I found the little minister and his wife, as chilly as ever, surveying the breakfast table. It was a long pine table without any cloth, a row of white plates set like buttons along the edges, with pieces of brown bread and tumblers of milk between them. * My dear,' says the minister, * it looks like a very cold breakfast for such a sharp morning.' 'Oh dear me!' says she, ' I suppose it's good for us.' I ate what I could get, and then took the first conveyance out of the place. So, you see, I know what you fellows are coming to. I prefer to die without suffering so much. You might as well kill a man outright as starve and freeze him to death."

At the expiration of a fortnight in Venice we went to the police-office to demand the right of departure. All over Italy, excepting perhaps Piedmont, the police have the same troublesome habit of taking away a traveler's passport when he enters a city, and obliging him, if lie stays over a week, to procure what they call a jpajper of residence, or paper of surety. At the end of his sojourn he swaps off his carta di residenza for his passport, gives a little something to boot most probably, and is allowed to go in peace. I knew very well of the existence of this unprofitable custom, but somehow forgot it at Venice, and so never applied at all for the said residential papers. Accordingly, when Neuville and I appeared at the police-office, and quietly demanded our passports without any thing to exchange for them but our forgetful heads, the officer nearly burst with wrath and astonishment.

"How!" he thundered, nearly petrifying us with the ferocity of his green spectacles; "no paper of residence ! I should like to know what this means. How dare you live a whole fortnight in Venice without a paper of residence ?"

We explained to him that we did not know what it meant ourselves ; that we did not dare to live so any longer, and that we wanted to get away and go somewhere else as soon as possible. He seemed utterly dumbfounded by our apologies, and indeed by the whole circumstance, which w T as perhaps unparalleled in his official experience, and was certainly a stigma on the police of the city. He gave us the passports, however, after shaking his head at us long enough to upset his brains, and perhaps went addle-pated before bedtime under the belief that the world was full of Yankees who had no papers of residence.

We were rather lucky in getting off with so little trouble. Had we been Englishmen instead of Americans, we might have gone farther and fared worse ;

IN A'ENICE. 15

that is, been turned out of Austria altogether, or, possibly, expressed on to some unpleasant Hungarian prison. Perfidious Albion was just then in great disfavor with the government of the Caesars, which accordingly delighted in entangling and thwarting those traveling Britons who happened to touch its mighty spider-web of watchfulness. An amusing Irishman named D'Arcy, whom I met at Dresden, related to me how he had a difference of opinion with the Venetian police concerning his projected journey from Venice to Vienna. "We can not give you a permit to go to Vienna," said the official; "we shall make out your passport for Milan."

"But I have just come from Milan," returned the surprised D'Arcy. "I have seen Milan, and seen it enough."

"Very possibly ; but we want you to go back there. It is extremely suspicious that you are so anxious to go to Vienna."

" Not at all. I want to go to Vienna because I want to see it. Every body wants to see Vienna."

"But what makes you so resolute to see Vienna? What is your particular motive — your object ?"

" Oh, I want to see it because it is such a beautiful city, and because it has such beautiful palaces in it, and because it has such beautiful women in it. Every body tells me about the beautiful women there ; and, begging your pardon for taking such a liberty, I shall die if you disappoint me."

The official looked monstrously puzzled, for every one was on the broad grin, and a certain suspect Hungarian was treasonably enjoying himself in a hearty laugh behind his traveling cap. At last he ungraciously appended his valuable autograph to the passport ; and the dear, darling D'Arcy, as his friends called him, went off triumphantly to see the pretty women of Vienna, among whom, as I afterward heard, he made no trifling sensation.

"I must tell you, by the way, of a dispute that I had with a countryman of yours," said D'Arcy to Burroughs and myself. "I was sitting in an Italian hotel, close by a party of Americans, when one of them declared that Old England was nigh her downfall. * I'll take you up on that,' said I. ' I'll meet you,' said he. So we had it there, back and forth, for an hour together, without convincing each other a particle. He gave me his card when we separated. His name was Greeley, and I heard that he was the editor of a large New York paper."

"Greeley! I'm glad you pitched into him," said Burroughs, who hated England himself, but who, as a Southerner, hated Greeley more.

Returning to my subject, I observe that stories innumerable might be collected of ludicrous encounters between travelers and the Continental police, especially that of Austria. The broad brims of wide-awakes have repeatedly afforded a spacious battle-field for these two antagonistic classes of society. A friend of mine journeyed in one of those revolutionary head-dresses from Florence to Vienna without molestation ; but it was not permitted that he should brave the Austrian eagle in its nest with impunity, and that watchful fowl made a triumphant peck at him when he least expected it. Taken into custody in the street by a spy in citizen costume, aided by a couple of soldiers, he was marched to a police-office, with the proof of his political turpitude on his devoted head. The chief of the office got into a fearful rage at sight of him — not so much because of the hat, as because it was late, and dinner was waiting. They were about to secure the government for one night against the seditious broad-brim by locking it up, and locking its owner up with it, when a friend, who had witnessed the capture, arrived with a valet de place from the hotel just in time to make explanations, and save our countryman from repenting of wide-awakes in the night-watches of an Austrian prison.

"It was all a mistake, then?" asked the officer.

"Oh! quite a mistake."

"You had no evil intentions in wearing a broad-brimmed hat ?"

"None at all ; not an intention in the world."

"Well, go then. But buy another hat. Do not be seen again in the streets with such a hat as this, or the consequences may be very serious."

My friend bought a steeple-crown before breakfast the next morning, and thus, for a second time, was the Austrian empire saved from destruction.

A farce on the same subject as the above was played at Milan, partly in my own presence. Presenting my passport at the police-office of that city, I met an English acquaintance, a capital fellow named Budd, who, with a look of brazen impenitence, was receiving an admonition concerning the radical character of his hat. " Good-morning, Signor Budd," said the officer from behind his desk, leaning forward, and looking searchingly, though civilly, into the broad, handsome, good-humored, but determined face which confronted him. " We sent for you, signor, to speak to you about your hat — the one you have in your hand at this moment."

"It is worthy of the honor," said Budd; "it is a good hat." And he held up the battered, dusky- white broad-brim with an air of affectionate admiration.

" Precisely, signor ; very useful, I have no doubt. But it may bring you into trouble. You are aware, doubtless, that its form and color are both unusual ; you are aware that hats of that species have been the badge of a certain disorderly and treasonable party. You have also a full, long beard, which is equally a badge of the said party. The whole marks you as singular, and attracts an unpleasant degree of popular notice."

"But," responded Budd, "I am not an Italian. I have nothing to do with Italian politics. I wear such a hat and beard as suit my style of beauty and my notions of convenience."

"Exactly, signor. You have nothing to do with politics ; we know it well. We know all your tastes and all your haunts. You went into the country yesterday. You were at the Cafe delle Colonne the evening before. You were at the house of Signora Bellina the evening before that. You have been watched ever since you reached Milan, and we could tell you where you have been and what you have done on every single day. We now know that you are not a dangerous individual, and we wish to persuade you to avoid the appearance of being such. We have no intentions against your beard, signor ; you are welcome to keep it. But we would counsel you to discontinue wearing that hat : it would be so easy to lay it aside, and might save you so much trouble."

"Very well," said Budd ; "but, if I am to change my dress at the suggestion of the government, I want some particular directions as to the new style which I am to adopt. Just give me a written order specifying the kind of hat which I am to wear, and I am ready to obey it. But I must have the order. I want to send it to England ; it shall be published in Punch or the Times. I could get five pounds for such a paper in England."

The officer was nettled, and looked angrily at the row of white teeth which glittered maliciously through Budd's black mustaches. Controlling his temper, however, he went on with his admonition, although not in quite so composedly gracious a tone as before. "Signor, we can not give you such an order; it would be absurd. We leave the matter to your own sense of propriety and your prudence. But what we specially complain of is not so much the hat itself as your manner of wearing it. You wear it turned up, and turned down, and twisted, and cocked, in a style which attracts a great deal of attention, and is particularly obnoxious."