HARRY JOSCELYN.

——

VOL. II.

HARRY JOSCELYN.

BY

MRS. OLIPHANT

AUTHOR OF

“The Chronicles of Carlingford,”

&c., &c.


IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II.


LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1881.
All rights reserved.




HARRY JOSCELYN.

CHAPTER I.

HARRY’S RESOLUTION.

THERE is nothing that grows and strengthens with thinking of it like the sense of personal injury. Harry Joscelyn had been very angry when he left home; but he was not half so angry at that moment as when he looked out of the window of the railway carriage, as the train swept through the valley, and saw in the distance the village roofs, over which, had there been light enough, and had his eyes served him so far, he might have seen the White House seated, firm and defiant, upon the Fellside. And every mile that he travelled his wrath and indignation grew. When he reached Liverpool he had formed his purpose beyond the reach of argument, or anything that reason could say; and reason said very little in the general excitement of his being. He had been turned out of his home, he had been refused the money by which he thought he could have made his fortune. He felt himself cast off by everybody belonging to him. His mother had permitted that final outrage, he thought; for surely she could have found means of help if she had chosen to exert herself. His Uncle Henry had bought himself off, and got rid of a troublesome applicant by the gift of that twenty pounds. They were all against him. He thought of it and thought of it till they seemed to be all his enemies, and at last he came to believe that they were glad to get quit of him, to be done with him. This was the aspect under which he contemplated his relations with his family when he got to Liverpool; and the effect upon him was that of a settled disgust with all the ordinary habits of his life, and its fashion altogether. When he thought of returning to the office, to his former routine as clerk, the idea made him sick. It seemed to him that he could do anything, or go anywhere, rather than this. But though the impulse of abandoning all he had been or done hitherto was instantaneous, he could not quite settle in a moment, with the same rapidity, what he was to do, or be, in the future. He crossed to the other side of the great river with his little bag of “needments,” the linen Mrs. Eadie had bought for him and a few other indispensable things which he had himself procured, and lived in one of the villages there, which have now grown into towns, watching the ships go by, and leaving his mind open to any wandering impulse that might lay hold upon it. In these days the River Mersey was a great sight, as probably it is still. To the idle young man, accustomed to some share in the perpetual commotion of that coming and going, there was meaning in every one of the multitudinous ships that lay at anchor in the great stream, or glided out, full-sail, to the sea, or were poked and dragged away by a restless, toiling little slave of a steam-tug, carrying off its prey like one of the devils of the Inferno. He knew where they were going, and what they had to bring from afar, and all about their bills of lading and the passengers they carried. The river had not to him that grandeur of prose which becomes poetry, and fact which turns to romance, in less accustomed minds; but was only a huge highway, a big street full of crowds coming and going, over which he brooded, wondering where he should plunge into the tide of movement, and how take his first step out of the horizons which hitherto had bounded him. He did not say, as his mother might have done, “Oh, for the wings of a dove!” but he put that profound breath of human impatience into nineteenth century prose, and said to himself, “If I had but a steamboat, a yacht, anything to take me out of reach of all of them, where they will never hear of me again!” He was not rich enough, however, to hope for a yacht, so that all he could really do was to decide what “boat” he would go with, and whether he should turn his steps across the Atlantic, or choose another quarter of the world in which to become another man.

He went to the office one day, as Philip Selby discovered, and asked for the amount of salary due to him, and purchased a few more necessary articles of clothing; and he wrote to the persons to whom he owed money, telling them that he was about to leave Liverpool, but would send them their money without fail within a certain period. He did not know how this was to be done, but he was resolute to do it, and he had no more doubt on the matter than he had that he should perfectly succeed in his plunge into the unknown. But after he had done this he remained for some days longer by the river-side with a self-contradictory impulse, watching the ships go by, and putting off the execution of his project. Where was he to go? To resolve to give up his own identity, to separate himself for ever from his family, and all his belongings, and all his antecedents, was easy; but to make up his mind which boat he was to go by, and whither he was to betake himself, was much more difficult. America was so hackneyed, he said to himself, with that fastidious impatience and disgust which is one of the characteristics of a sick soul: everybody goes to America; it would be the first idea that would occur to everyone; and this made him throw away that first suggestion angrily, as if it had been an offence; but if not to America, then where? He tossed about various names in his mind, satisfied with none, and when at last he made his decision, it was made in a moment, with the same kind of sick disgust and impatience as had made him reject the other ideas as they presented themselves. He was crossing the river to Liverpool, leaning over the side of the ferry steamboat lest anybody should see and recognize him, and in his own mind passing in review the advantages and disadvantages of all the ships he passed. The Mersey was very full and very bright, the sun shining, a brisk breeze blowing, the sky blue, the great estuary throwing up white edges of spray and leaping here and there against the bows of an out-going boat, in a manner which boded little comfort to unaccustomed sailors outside the shelter of its banks. The opposite shore was still clothed with trees beginning to grow green in the earliest tints of spring, and not unpleasantly mingled with the beginnings of docks and traces of mercantile invasion. Nature, as yet, had not given up her harmonizing power; the touches of colour on the masts, a national flag flying here and there, even the sailors’ washing fluttering among the yards, was an addition to the brilliancy of the spring lights. The ferry-boat was full of people, though it was not the hour for business men to be moving about. The freight was a more varied one than that mass of black-coated figures which weighed it down to the water’s edge in the morning. But Harry turned his back upon them all, and looked over the side, watching in a dream the long trail of water which slid under the bows and was caught and churned by the paddle-wheel. The motion, as he watched it thus, soothed him, and took the place of thinking in his mind, carrying him vaguely, he knew not whither, just as he would fain have been carried beyond the ken of men. He was waiting the guidance of chance, not caring what became of him. Something caught his ear suddenly as the ferry-boat rustled along by the side of a long low steamer with raking masts and short funnels, which lay not far from the bank.

“I wouldn’t go in that boat for the world,” some one said. The remark caught Harry’s ear, and roused him into mere wantonness of opposition. “Why?” he said to himself aloud. It did not matter whether it was said loud or low, nobody but himself could hear it as he leaned over the rushing water. “I’ll go.” He was in such a condition of perversity that this was all he wanted to fix his purpose.

He landed on the Liverpool side, no longer languidly, but with the air of a man who has something to do, and went straight to examine the ship and ascertain where to apply for his passage. She was bound for Leghorn. He went stepping briskly forth to the office of the agent, and then with a mixture of economy and gentility, still conscious of the importance of the family from which he was about to cut himself off, took a passage in what was called the second cabin.

“What name?” said the clerk. What name? he had not considered this question. Should he give his own name, thus leaving a clue to anyone who chose to inquire? The doubt, the question was momentary: “Isaac Oliver,” he said, and looked the man in the face as if defying contradiction. But the clerk had no idea of contradicting him; as well Isaac Oliver as Harry Joscelyn to the stranger, who knew nothing about either. Five minutes after he could not tell what had put this name into his head; but his fate was decided, and beyond correction. He went home with a curious feeling in his mind, not sure whether it was amusement, or shame, or anger with himself and fate. It was all three together. He was himself no longer, he had thrown away his birthright. What had tempted him to take the name of Isaac Oliver he could not explain. He laughed, but his laugh was not pleasant. He was annoyed and appalled and disgusted with himself, but he could not alter that now. All the evening he roamed about the riverbank, looking at the ships going out and in, and the little steamers rustling and fuming across the gleaming water, and all the many coloured symbols and ceaseless industry of the scene, with a strange sense of having lost himself, of having so to speak died in the middle of his life. He could not get over it. He was living in a little inn which had been turned into a sort of suburban tea-garden, instead of the little neat ale-house it once was. The weather was very fine and warm, though it was so early in the season, and every steamboat disgorged a crowd of visitors to sit under the half-open foliage of the trees, and in the damp little arbours. Harry avoided all these visitors in the fear of meeting some one who might know him. Harry! he was not Harry any longer. The mere giving of the false name had changed him. He did not know who he was. He was confused and confounded with the sudden difference. Had some one called out Harry Joscelyn quickly, he thought that it would no longer have occurred to him to answer. He was not Harry Joscelyn; and who was he? The name he had chosen, or which some malicious spirit had put into his head, seemed to float before him wherever he went. He shuffled in his walk unconsciously as he fled from himself along the margin of the great flood. What had he done? He had abandoned not only his own name and family, but his own condition, his place in life. Wherever he went, he would be known as a peasant, a common countryman, he thought, never thinking in his pre-occupation that the strangers among whom he was going knew just as much about Isaac Oliver as about Harry Joscelyn. The night grew dark, and the great river gleamed with a thousand sparkles of light like glowworms. Little vessels, each with a coloured lantern, went darting across and across, lights swung steadily with a sort of dreamy regular cadence from the stationary ships. The stars above were not more manifold than those little lamps below. The quiet of the night had hushed the sounds of the great city on the other side, and all the heavy hammers and the din of machinery: but still life was busy, coming and going, darting on a hundred messages; pilot boats steaming out to sea, little dark tugboats bringing back cargoes of souls out of the unknown. But Harry thought of nothing save of the strange, unpremeditated step he had taken; that one incident filled all the earth to him; a momentary impulse, a deed that was scarcely his, and yet he felt that it would colour all his life. He stayed out till the passenger boats had stopped and all the visitors were gone. The little inn was shut up and dark, all but one little querulous candle sitting up for him, when he went home: home! he called this temporary refuge by that sacred name involuntarily—just such a home he now said bitterly, as he would have for the rest of his life. Fortunately next day the Leghorn boat was to sail, and his new start would be made without time to think about it any more.

Isaac Oliver took possession of his berth next morning. He went on board early, and lounged about the deck all day. For the first time this morning it occurred to him that they might send after him, that his departure could not have passed altogether without notice among his friends. He had not thought of this before, but now it came upon him with some force. They would try to stop him at the last moment. The very name he had chosen would betray him, for who but Harry Joscelyn would call himself Isaac Oliver? He kept on the further side of the ship, leaning over the bulwarks, and watched everybody who went or came with jealous eyes. Tardy passengers came on board one after another, bringing luggage and new items of cargo and provisions; there was scarcely a moment without some arrival, and every one of them, Harry felt, must be for him. When at last the gangway was detached, the anchor weighed, the latest idler or porter put on shore, and the very screw in motion, he felt sure there must be some last attempt, some appeal from the quay. “Have you one of the name of Harry Joscelyn there?” he thought he could actually hear them calling; and saw the rapid examination of the list of passengers, and the shaking of heads of the captain and his immediate assistants, who were standing together high above all the others. When there could be no longer any doubt that the steamboat was off, and that no appeal of the kind had been made, a quick and hot sense of offence came over Harry. He had been alarmed by the idea of being identified and stopped at the outset of his voyage: but as soon as he was certain that he was to be allowed to proceed peaceably on that voyage, his heart burned within him with a sense of injury. Now it was indeed all ended and all over, his life, his name, everything to which he had been accustomed in the past. He went below to his berth, with a sense of complete abandonment and desolation which it would be impossible to describe. It appeared to him that until now he had only been playing with the idea, amusing himself with all the preparations for a change which would never really take place, which somehow would be stopped and prevented at the end. But nobody had put forth a finger to stop him, and now the end was accomplished and beyond all remedy. Up to the time he came on shipboard he had not thought of being stopped, but now he felt as if he had expected it all the time, and was grievously injured and heartlessly abandoned by all the world and by all his relations, not one of whom would lift a finger on his behalf. He went down to his shabby berth in the second cabin, and felt much disposed, like his mother, to turn his face to the wall. But, perhaps fortunately for Harry, the sea was rough, and when the vessel steamed out of the Mersey and felt the full commotion of the waves outside, he was sick, and not in a condition to care for anything.

In this way he lost the thread of his trouble for the first two days: and then novelty and excitement began to tell upon him, and he came altogether to himself. No, not to himself: he did not feel clear about who he was or what. He came to—Isaac Oliver, looking that new personage in the face with a bewildered awe of him and wonder at him. Isaac Oliver! who, he wondered vaguely, could he be? not a son of old Isaac, who had only little children—a nephew or a cousin, some off-shoot of the family, if the Olivers could be called a family, a suggestion at which he smiled in spite of himself. That must be who he was, the offspring of a race of peasants, no better blood, no other pretensions. The Joscelyns were a very different class of people, but he had given them up, he had shaken off all bonds between them and himself. “In for a penny, in for a pound,” he said to himself, setting his face to it with a smile, as the steamboat bore up along the Italian coast, and “the old miraculous mountains hove in sight.” Harry did not feel any special interest in Italy: he was of the class who never travel, and understand but little why one place should be more interesting than another. And, indeed, Leghorn does not sound like Italy to any traveller. What he knew of it was that it was a busy sea-port, where there were merchants’ offices and a thriving trade. He did not interest himself much about anything else. He had his living to make, alone and unbefriended in a strange country: need was that he should collect himself and pluck up a heart and think what he was to do, now that he was so near the place of his destination—or, at least, not what he, but young Isaac Oliver, was to do. Would any merchant take him in without character, without introduction or testimonial? This thought was like a cold breath going through and through him, when he began to think. But he had still a little money in his pocket, and could afford to wait and look about him for a week or two. There is always something turning up in a busy place. And Harry, accustomed to occupation all his life, could not believe that he would ever starve where there was anything to do.

They had touched at various other ports on the way, whose chief claims to be visited were such as Harry had little understanding of, and the eagerness of his fellow-passengers to get on shore and see these places had surprised him. For his own part, he did not see the fun of going to see a succession of churches and pictures. He had seen but few pictures in his life, and he had never been taught that they were of much importance. He had, indeed, privately, an honest contempt for such things, though he said little about it. He was disposed to ask, “What are you all staring at?” when he was brought face to face with an early Master, a thing which he would have banished into the darkest corner had it been his. But when he got into the harbour at Leghorn he began to feel himself once more dans son assiette. He knew what the docks meant, and appreciated the masts of the shipping better than if they had been the most delicate works of art. It was nothing to Liverpool, but it was something he could understand and felt at home with. He landed in better spirits than he had experienced for a very long time. He felt a moral certainty that he should “get on” here.

But what a shock it was when the unaccustomed Englishman stepped first on shore, and found himself in the midst of a strange life, of which he did not understand even the first word! He knew very well, of course, that it was a foreign place, and that English was not spoken there; but he never had realized that it would be impossible by speaking loudly, or using a sort of broken English, or some other simple contrivance, to make the barbarous natives understand. Even an individual much better educated than poor Harry may be excused if the shock of that extraordinary solitude and isolation which surrounds him when he finds himself incapable of understanding a word of what is going on, is a surprise and irritation as well as a discomfort. He stood on the quay with his little portmanteau by him—after having been rowed over endless links of basins, all full of clear green sea-water, cut like a great jelly by the progress of the boat, to the landing-place—and stood there aghast, and, indeed, agape, hustled by the crowd, and with a grinning porter on each side of him making offers of incomprehensible service. He would not deliver himself over into the hands of any such harpies he was resolved, not even when they addressed him in a word or two of English, though the sound was as balm to his ears. He stood over his portmanteau and angrily pushed the facchini away, but at last got hold of a lad whose appearance pleased him, who was tidier than the rest. To him Harry said “Hotel?” in a sort of half-questioning, half-suggestive way; but this was not enough to get him clear of the officious crowd, who flew at him with names which conveyed no meaning to his ears. Harry felt like a man caught in a hailstorm as he was pelted with those big sonorous syllables. He grew furious with confusion and bewilderment. He had not been thought specially strong on the Fells, but here his North-country muscles told. He pushed away the crowd, who he thought were making a joke of him, and took up his own portmanteau. “The gentleman is all right,” said some one beside him; “you have no education, you are without manners, you others,” and somebody took off a hat and made a salutation, somebody who reached to about Harry’s elbow. It was civil, and the first part of the sentence had been said in English, so Harry, learning by experience, conquered his wrath, and was civil too. “Can I perhaps indicate a hotel?” this new personage said; “Mister is an English?” Harry stood still and looked down upon his new acquaintance, not quite clear as to the meaning of what he said. He was a little man, small and dainty, dressed with quaint care, with high shirt-collars, and a large black cravat tied in a bow, and the most shining of black hats, which he took off when he spoke. He was olive-complexioned, with big, dark, soft Italian eyes. “Mister is an English?” he said; “by paternity I am an English, too. I will indicate a hotel if the gentleman chooses. It will deliver him from la canaglia, what you call this rabbel,” he added, with an ingratiating smile, and a great rattle of his r’s. It was mere good-nature, but Harry was by no means sure of this, and he knew that foreigners were deceivers. “Thanks, I won’t trouble you,” he said, abruptly, and lifting his portmanteau—it was not a big one—strode away. He felt angry and depressed, yet excited. The astonished look of the little man, who made him another bow, and replaced his hat with a shrug of his shoulders at the Englishman’s want of manners, added to his discomfiture. Perhaps he had made a fool of himself by refusing those good offices which were offered to him, Harry thought. Perhaps he would have been a bigger fool had he accepted. Perhaps they were all in a conspiracy to rob him. He strode on and on, somewhat ashamed of his own appearance with the portmanteau, as if he were too poor to pay anyone to carry it, and thoroughly bewildered altogether amid the sounds and sights which he did not understand. But at the end he got into an inn where there was some one who spoke English, not such a usual accomplishment in these days as it is now; and where he got a room which was very strange of aspect to the untravelled young man. The half hour which he passed there, seated upon the odd little bed, with his portmanteau at his feet upon the tiled floor, all so strange, so desolate to Harry, was as terrible a moment as he had ever passed in his life. His very soul was discouraged, sunk low in his breast with a kind of physical drop and downfall. It was all he could do not to burst out crying in his forlornness and helplessness and solitude. What could he do in a place where he did not understand a word? In many cases novelty is delightful, but there are some in which it is the most dreadful of all depressing circumstances. Everything, from the dingy tiles under his feet, and the dark eating-room downstairs, with its unaccustomed smells, up to the blaze of the Italian noon, and the incomprehensible tongue that everybody spoke, weighed upon Harry. He covered his face with his hands, sitting there upon his bed. What evil fate had led him to this unknown place? What should he do without even a name that belonged to him, without a friend? A gasp came into his throat, and the hand that covered his eyes was wet. He felt himself bowed down to the very ground.

After thus “giving way,” however, Harry braced himself up, and recovered at least the appearance of courage. He made the best toilette he could by the help of the small washing utensils, which were not so entirely abhorrent to English customs then as they are now—for baths were not very general, and washing-basins were but small, in the first quarter, if not the first half, of this century. And then he sallied forth refreshed—into a new world.

CHAPTER II.

A NEW WORLD.

HARRY strayed about the town during the afternoon, losing his way, and finding it again; but got back to the hotel before the important hour of dinner, of which the English-speaking waiter had informed him. He was less amused than depressed with all he saw. The perpetual talk that seemed to be going on around him—sharp, varied, high-pitched, incomprehensible—gave him at first a sense of offence, as if all these people were doing it on purpose in order to bewilder him, and afterwards a profound feeling of discouragement. He was not clever he was aware. He had never been very great at his school work, and how was he to accomplish the first preliminary, the very initial step of existence here, the learning of the language, to which he had no clue, and of which he could not make out one word? It seemed to him as if years must elapse before he could master the very rudiments of the new tongue; and how was he to seek for work, or to get work to do, not knowing the very A B C of the life about him? Harry went doubling about the unfamiliar streets, looking with wistful eyes at every passer-by who had the look of an Englishman, and asking himself what he was to do. He did not seem to have any spirit left for the uphill work of learning a language. There rose up before him a vision of the exercises which he had once laboured at, daubing himself with ink, and of the verbs which he had got by heart overnight only to forget them in the morning. To think that he could not even ask his way! Wherever he strayed he looked at the people helplessly, as if he had been dumb, and anxiously examined all the street corners, without venturing to approach any shop, or lay himself open to any encounter. He was more fortunate than might have been expected in this point, for he found the right street corner at last, and the house, with its strange old courtyard, and the long dark sala which looked into it, and in which the guests were already gathering. The house had a good reputation, and the large room was nearly full. Harry, who had never seen anything of the kind before, saw the people take their places, each appropriating his own turned down chair, and half finished bottle of wine, and looked for his own place with a curious sense of the everyday character to the others of all these proceedings, which to him were so unusual. Yesterday, at the same hour, no doubt they had all been here, and last year, and as long as anybody could recollect, munching a slice from the long Italian loaf, the yard of bread which of itself astonished his simple-minded ignorance. To think that with such an air of routine and long establishment this dinner should have been happening methodically every day while he was pursuing his work at Liverpool, or taking his holiday at home. At home! The words sounded like a bitter sarcasm to the young man, who had no home—who had now no identity, no self to fall back upon, but had begun to exist, so to speak, only a few days ago. And to think this table, with all its soils and steams, should have been waiting for him all this time!

“’Ere, Sarr, ’ere,” said the English-speaking waiter, his black eyes rolling in his head with pride and pleasure in this exhibition of his gift of languages. He was holding the back of a chair which had been carefully turned down, and was placed between a fat old Italian, with an enormous depth of double chin, and a small figure, which Harry recognised at once as that of the man who had spoken to him on the quay. “De gentelman speak English,” said the waiter, bowing with amiability and pleasure. Harry, it is to be feared, did not appreciate the exertions made in his behalf. The little stranger, on his side, was as smiling and bland as the attendant, delighted to make himself agreeable. They both thought it the most pleasant thing in the world to surprise the sulky and speechless Englishman with a companion to whom he could talk. “Mister have found his way after all to the Leone,” said his friend, “I wish myself joy of it. It is what I most did desire. He is the best hotel, the very best hotel in all Livorno. Most of the strangers, what we call forestieri, find their ways here. Mister will find himself very comfortable; the kitchen is excellent, and the chambers—the chambers!” here the little man spread out his hands with ecstatic admiration, “so clean, so comfortable; everything an Englishman desire.”

Harry was cross, and he was suspicious. He thought the reappearance of his first acquaintance looked like a conspiracy, and that probably between the man and the waiter it was an understood thing that the Englishman, who was so ignorant, should be made to pay for his initiation into foreign ways. But he had no intention of being made to pay if he could possibly help it. He had not the slightest understanding of the waiter’s benevolent wish to make him comfortable, or the innocent satisfaction of the other, at once in showing off himself and his acquirements and showing kindness to a stranger. Harry did not realize the national character in both, which made them pleased to serve him, and anxiously on the watch for the look of pleasure which they anticipated as their reward. An English servant would have looked on with anticipations of another kind. He would have watched to see the stranger’s hand stealing into his pocket: and on this point no doubt Antonio had as sharp an eye as anyone; but his Italian soul, asked for something more; he wanted to see a glow of pleasure in the face of the person to whom he had just, as he thought, done a service. Harry refused to pay in this wise. His countenance, somewhat dark before, settled down into a heavier gloom. He drew in his chair to the table roughly, losing part of his companion’s address: and he did not look at the young man who was talking to him, or give him any recompense for the effort he was making. After a while he made a remark, but it was not a very civil one. “Why do you call me Mister?” was what he said.

The stranger looked at him, complacent still, but yet a trifle abashed—“Because,” he said, stroking a small moustache, and fixing his eyes upon Harry with a smiling yet deprecating glance, “I do not know the gentleman’s name.”

“Even if you don’t know a fellow’s name,” said Harry, ruthless, “it isn’t English to say Mister. Mister is a title of contempt.” Here the horrified look of his new acquaintance made him pause. “I mean when it’s used alone without the name. Low people sometimes use it so—but nobody who speaks decent English,” Harry said. As he spoke the stranger’s olive countenance caught flame and grew crimson. He laughed an embarrassed, uncomfortable little laugh.

“It is that I am mistaken,” he said; “I have not spoke English moch. The gentleman will pardon my error. My name is Paolo Thompson,” he said, with a little wave of the hand, introducing himself.

“You would like to know my name,” said Harry.

The Italian-Englishman replied, not with any expression of offence, but with a smiling bow.

“My name is——” he made a pause. He looked at the interested countenance beside him, a sense of the ludicrous mingling with his suspicious distrust of all strangers and foreigners. What did it matter what he said to a little impostor like this? “Oliver,” he added, with a laugh. He almost thought the little fellow, though not an Englishman, must see the incongruity, the absurdity, of associating the name of Oliver with such a person as Harry Joscelyn. It suddenly became a practical joke to him, a masquerade which everyone must see through.

“O—— livr,” said little Thompson, with a long emphasis upon the first letter, and a hurried slur over the rest; “that right? alright! Mister O—lvr.”

“Not Mister,” said Harry, growing benevolent as he felt a little amusement steal over him, and he tried to give his new acquaintance the nuance of sound which divides the Mr. of English use and wont from the two distinct syllables of which Paolo was so fond. They grew friends over this attempt at unity of pronunciation, or rather Harry permitted himself to grow friendly, and to ask himself what harm this little foreigner could do him—a little hop o’ my thumb, whom he could lift in one hand. As he laughed over his new friend’s attempt to catch the difference of sound, his friendly feeling increased. He felt his superiority more and more, and in that superiority his suspicions melted away. As for little Paolo he took everything amiably. He had no objection to be laughed at.

“You mean not bad,” he said, “I know; you mean not to make angry. Laugh, it is a way of us English. My father was an Englishman. I never know him; he was died before I am born; but I too am an English by origin. It is for that I have my place. I am Interpreter. I put what you say in Italian. I put what one would say to you in English. Thus I please to both,” said the little man with lively satisfaction; and he laughed when Harry laughed with genuine good faith. Perhaps it was the reaction from his past despondency which made Harry laugh so much, perhaps the little bravado of a stranger feeling himself gazed at and isolated among a crowd of people alien to him. He attracted the eyes of all the guests at the table-d’hôte especially of some Americans who had come in late, and one other Englishman who regarded him gloomily from the other end of the table, and concluded that his countryman was having too much to drink, but that it was not his business. Harry was not taking too much to drink; he was making wry faces at the sour Nostrali, which was the only wine provided without a special order. Harry did not understand any wine except Port and Sherry, and he despised the sour stuff of which he took one big gulp and no more; he did not know what else to order, and he did not like to mix up Paolo in his affairs so far as to ask his advice on this point. Paolo for his part was drinking a little of his wine in a tumblerful of water, not without some alarm lest the eau rougie should go to his head. He told Harry all his story as they sat together. His father had been an English clerk, sent out from England to an office in Leghorn, who had married an Italian girl, and died in the first year of their marriage. Paolo was very proud of that fine and aristocratic name of Thompson, of which there was a Lord and many Sirs, he informed Harry with great but smiling seriousness; his mother, though she had been so young, would never re-marry herself, though pressed on all sides to do so—such was her devotion to her youthful husband who was English, and to the romantic and euphonious name which he had left her. The young man grew every moment more friendly. Harry’s suspicions all floated away as he listened to the story, and laughed at the accent and grammar of his new acquaintance, who laughed too with perfect good-humour. Thompson—he was a fit associate for an Oliver, Harry said to himself, knowing nothing about any Oliver save Isaac whose name he had appropriated. After dinner was over Paolo proposed that they should go for a stroll; and though Harry had done nothing else but stroll all the afternoon with very small advantage, yet he was quite willing to begin again with the aid of his friend’s knowledge. It was less lonely than sitting in the dreadful little room of which Paolo had ventured to say that it was so comfortable, and exactly what an Englishman liked. Harry shuddered at the thought; he had never been used to sit in his bedroom, and he could not but feel it a sort of humiliation that he had no other room to sit in. His new friend was a wonderful example of costume to the untrained taste of Harry. He wore trousers of a large check, but a black evening coat over them, a large shirt-front, a black ribbon at his neck tied in a bow, and varnished shoes. He was very well contented with his appearance. When he added an opera-hat to all this finery, the sensation in his little bosom of thorough self-content was very warm. Harry could not but laugh at the little exquisite, whose gorgeous apparel was so unlike anything he had ever seen.

“I don’t know if I dare to walk out in my coloured clothes with such a swell as you are, Thompson,” he said. Paolo looked down upon himself delighted. He knew he was well-dressed.

“You are all right,” he said, “an English, that covers all; but when one is only by origin, more must be done. Komm a-long.” He stretched up his hand, which he had just clothed in light kid, to Harry’s arm, who had no gloves, nor any other advantage. The Angelus was sounding from all the churches as they set out. Harry could not but wonder if there was an evening sermon, or if it was a series of prayer-meetings which were going on. He was much surprised that foreigners should have such devout habits. It surprised him, too, to see how soon it got dark; but as it happened there was a brilliant moon which soon made the streets as light as day. And as soon as the sacred hour of sunset, the fatal hour which Italians dread, was over, the streets filled with a crowd which still more surprised Harry. Before all the cafés the pavements were crowded—not only men, but women, seated at the little tables enjoying the freshness of the lovely evening, and making such a hum and babble of talk as nothing but an unknown tongue can produce. A language which is familiar to us never sounds so like an uproar and tumult as one that is unintelligible. Harry’s first thought was that the people about him were all quarrelling; his second that this chatter was the riotous and boundless gaiety which he had always heard attributed to “foreigners;” but the scene amused him, though it was so unintelligible, and by and by a degree of toleration which years at home could not have conveyed to him, began to penetrate his mind. Perhaps after all it was only the different habits of these unknown people, and neither quarrelling nor riot. Sometimes one would jump up in the midst of a conversation as if impelled by a sudden outburst of fury, and address his friends, gesticulating wildly; but after Harry had taken the alarm, and sat ready to strike in if any harm happened, he noticed that the friends of the violent person took it quite calmly, turning upon him looks which were full of smiling placidity, and evidently fearing nothing. In the same way when two men were threading their way along the street together, one would suddenly drop the other’s arm, and standing still, discourse with every mark of excitement for a minute, then resume his friend’s arm and go on again as if there had been no interruption. An Englishman would have knocked down his adversary with much less demonstration. Harry felt himself obliged to pause too, and give an eye to these personages; and when he also sat down with his companion at one of the little tables, his attention to Paolo’s doubtful English was constantly interrupted by the same supposed need of watchfulness in case the party next to them should come to blows. But all the other people took it quite quietly, to Harry’s great surprise.

“Why do these beggars jump up in that way and look as if they were going to knock some other fellow down?” Harry said at last.

“Beggares?” said Paolo, looking round hastily; and then, for he was a young man anxious to improve himself and quick of apprehension, he jumped at the Englishman’s meaning. “Ah! that is English for questi Signori, these gentlemen? beggares! capisco, capisco!” said Paolo, clapping his hands as at an excellent joke; “they do nothing but make a little conversation, what you call talk,—these beggares;” and he burst forth once more into a genial peal.

Harry was half pleased to have achieved such a facile success, and half alarmed lest perhaps Paolo might be laughing at him. He said with a suppressed growl, “Conversation! do you call that conversation? I thought they were going to fly at each other’s throats.”

“No, no, no—never fly at each other’s throats; they have too much education,” said Paolo; “it is the Italian animation, that is all. An English is what you call quiet. He talks down here, not out of his mout,” and Paolo beat himself upon the breast, and pointed to about the spot out of which Harry’s deep bass proceeded. Harry was by no means pleased with this familiarity, but he reflected that the little man was his only friend among all these strangers, and subdued his displeasure. He did not know very well what to do with the pink syrup that was furnished him to drink: that, and the sour wine, and the black coffee, were all alike out of Harry’s way. Oh, that he could have had but one mighty draught of English beer to clear all these cobwebs out of his throat! But this was an indulgence, like so many others, to be hoped for no more.

After Paolo had sipped the rosolio which Harry contemplated with such a mingling of alarm and disgust, they got up and continued their walk. By-and-bye, in the full moonlight, they strolled towards the port, and walked about on the quays, among the shipping, which threw up its black lines of masts, and dark lace of cordage against the silvery light of which the sky was full. Harry was interested about all this, much more than about churches or pictures. And he threaded his way among the ropes, and piles of barrels and cases with which the quays were encumbered, with a stir of curiosity and hope. Should he find his life and work within the circle which surrounded these instruments of wealth? He paid but little attention to the talk of his companion as they went along. He seemed to see once more the new career before him which he had been doubting an hour or two before. It was not a very magnificent prospect: yet work that suited him might surely be found when there were goods to be exported, and counting houses to look after these goods. He did not know what might become of him in this strange place, but whatever his fortune might be it was all he could look forward to, and his mind seemed to take a new start from the appearance before him of a possibility, a strain of existence which he understood. He forgot, as he listened to Paolo’s chatter going on by his side—which filled him with a vague, superficial sense of superiority—all about the new language to be learned, and the difficulties which had almost overwhelmed him in the afternoon. Thus he went on, allowing his companion to talk, and thinking his own thoughts, till they emerged from the immediate regions of the basins and docks and came back to the streets. They were crossing one which was very dimly lighted, and which Paolo informed him led into the better quarter of the town, when they came in sight, or, rather in hearing, of a party of sailors in a noisy state of exhilaration. What could they have been drinking, Harry wondered, thinking of the sour wine and the rosolio, to make them so convivial? They were singing rude choruses, and making night hideous with jokes and loud laughter, bearing a wonderful family resemblance to noises of the same kind which Harry had heard near the port of Liverpool—when there suddenly crossed the moonlit-road, between the revellers and the two orderly passengers, a couple of female figures moving rapidly, figures very easily identified as those of an elder and younger woman—a sedate and ample personage, with a girl clinging to her. Two of the sailors, with a holloa of satisfaction, started forward in pursuit. They overtook the women when they were close to Harry and his companion, and one of them seized the girl by the arm. She gave a frightened cry, and the other woman, throwing her arm round her, pushed the men away, pouring forth a volley of rapid Italian, of which Harry of course did not understand a word. He made a stride forward to the fray. Paolo, on his side, who was small and not valorous, did his best to hold him back.

“It is not our business,” he said, with a certain faltering in his voice.

“Tell them to let go the girl,” said Harry, with brief determination.

“It is not our business,” said the alarmed interpreter.

“Tell them they had better let go that girl,” repeated the young Englishman.

Then little Paolo stood forth, with a courage which was not his own, and addressed the sailors. He took off his hat with the utmost politeness and remonstrated. Harry, beginning, by dint of hearing them repeated, to distinguish the words, at last understood that “Questo Signor” must mean himself; but the sailors treated the remonstrance with contempt. The other one took hold of the girl by the other arm, while she screamed, and her companion raved and scolded at them, pushing and struggling with all her might. Harry stepped forward into the moonlight. He lifted up his clenched fist and his big bass voice. “Let go that girl,” he shouted in good English, with a voice that roused all the echoes. The men did not know a word he said; but they understood him, which was more to the purpose. They let go their hold in a minute, and stood staring at the intruder as sheepishly as any Englishmen could have done, and perhaps also with a touch of shame. Little Paolo, trembling yet triumphant, kept close to the champion, while he stood and faced them, ready for whatever might happen. It was not for nothing that Harry was a Joscelyn. He stood well up to them with a watchful eye and a ready arm. The women had escaped under cover of this unexpected interposition from their first assailants, but another pursuer by this time had got upon their track. “Let’s have a look at your face, my pretty lass,” this lout said, as he rolled along. Harry’s blood was up in a moment. “Oh, by Jove!” he cried, as if the sound of his native tongue had been the last aggravation, “this is too much. I know what to say to you, at least, my fine fellow,” and he turned upon his countryman like lightning, and promptly knocked him down. “I am not going to stand any nonsense from you,” he said.

It was the affair of a moment—no more. The women flew along the street, disappearing up the nearest opening. Harry strode on after them with his blood up, but walking with the most dignified tranquillity. He would not even turn round to see what had happened. “If he thought I was going to stand him,” he said, as he went along, “that fellow, by Jove! but he was in the wrong box.” As for little Paolo, between fright and admiration, he was at his wit’s end. He danced along, now hurrying Harry on, now facing the other way, walking backwards to keep the other party in sight, and uttering alarmed entreaties. “Run! run! What if you ’ave kill him?” he cried. “Vergene Santissima! they are coming. You ’ave done it now, you ’ave done it, and no one to help. Per Bacco! and he goes as if it were a festa. Run, Mister, run!”

“I told you not to call me Mister,” said Harry, walking on with perfect coolness and at his ordinary pace. Paolo was half beside himself. “Perhaps you have kill a man,” he cried, “and you stop to set right my English—at such a moment——”

“Pooh!” said Harry; he would not have quickened his steps for a fortune. “Don’t you know the beggar is an Englishman? A broken head won’t hurt him. Let’s keep the women in sight, they might get into more trouble.” Paolo followed him, trembling and hurried as they got further off; but the noisy sailors were busy about their fallen comrade, and made no attempt to follow. They were too much startled by the summary proceedings of the stranger, and kept back by a certain sense of justice which seldom fails in such an affray. The little Italian kept close to Harry like a dog, rushing about him, now a little in advance, now a little behind. “He ’ave pick himself up,” he said, looking back. “Dio! how the English understand each other! He is not kill.”

“Killed!” cried Harry, contemptuously. “It takes more than that to kill an Englishman, even a beast like that fellow. You may palaver with your own kind, but I know what to do with mine. Come along, Thompson. Where have those women gone?”

Here Paolo caught him by the arm, dragging him into the narrow street by which the flying figures had disappeared. One side of it was in almost perfect darkness, while the other was white and brilliant in the moonlight. “You like to know who it was,” he said. “Per Bacco! I know.”

“It does not matter to me who it was,” said Harry, “so long as they are safe, that is all I care for. Women have no business to be out so late at night.”

At this Paolo nodded his head a great many times in assent. “But that is English too,” he said. “How you are strange! You let a young lady go in the street, and you kill a man, and never think more of it! and the man when he is kill, get up and walk away instead of to avenge himself! You are strange, very strange. I understand you very well, for I am an English too.”

After this somewhat startling incident, however, they did not linger long on their way. It had stirred the blood in Harry’s veins and given him the new start he wanted. There is nothing like a new incident for familiarising the mind with any great change in this life. Hitherto he had thought of nothing but his own transmogrification. Now he had something else to think of. He got back to his inn unmolested and uninterrupted, and he found his dreary little room not so dreary when it became a shelter for his fatigue, and a refuge in which to think over the strange excitement of this first new day.

CHAPTER III.

SETTING OUT IN LIFE.

“I go to the bureau,” he said, “but before I go I am here to say good morning. What will you do without me?” the little man added with great simplicity. “Get lost, get into what you call skrape. Antonio, he speak a little. I come to advise that you take him with you. It will be only five lire, not very moche for an English.”

“I wish you could remember,” said Harry pettishly, “to say an Englishman. An English is no sense: you never hear me say that.”

“Alright,” said Paolo good-humouredly. “I will remember; but it will be better to take Antonio; he shows you everything, all the palaces and streets, and you give him cinque lire—five,” holding up his fingers spread out to show the sum, and counting them with his other hand, “and you talk, he tell you things in Italian, you make a lesson out of him,” he added with a grin, showing all his white teeth.

It was a sensible suggestion, but Harry was perverse. “That is all very well,” he said, “but I don’t care about seeing your palaces; what I want is to get something to do. Ain’t there a Times, or something with advertisements? where a fellow could see what’s wanted?”

Paolo looked at him with a doubtful air, and his head on one side like a questioning sparrow. He was so small and so spare, and Harry so big, stretched out in the small bed which could not contain him, that the simile held in all points. It appeared unnecessary that he should do more than put out his hand to make an end altogether of his adviser, and there seemed a consciousness of this in the little man himself, who, recollecting last night, hopped a little farther off every time that Harry advanced leaning on his elbow, and projecting himself out of bed.

“You bring letters, you are recommended?” he said. “No?” A cloud came over Paolo’s face; then he brightened again. “You come with me,” he said. “The Consul, that is the prince of the English—man. You come wid me, and I will recommend you. I will introduce you. He have much confidence, what you call trost, in me.”

“But you don’t know anything about me,” said Harry.

Paolo looked at him with an effusion of admiration and faith, “Siamo amici,” he said, laying his hand upon his heart with a sentiment and air which to the cynical Englishman were nothing less than theatrical. But Harry did not understand what the words meant.

“That is all very well,” he said again, supposing that this was a mere compliment without meaning. “But what could you say about me? nothing! You don’t know me any more than the Consul does—or anybody here.”

“Between friends,” said Paolo, “there is not the need of explanation. I understand you, Mister. Are you a Christian or a Protestant,” he added quickly, “have you a name of baptism, perhaps?” Paolo did not want to hurt the feelings of his new friend in case he was not provided with this article. But Harry’s pride was wounded to the quick.

“A Christian,” he cried, “or a Protestant? I am both a Protestant and a Christian! I never heard such horrible intolerance in all my life. It is you who are not Christians, you papists praying to idols—worshipping saints, and old bones, and all sort of nonsense.” Harry was so much in earnest that his face grew crimson, and Paolo retreated yet another step.

“You heat yourself; but it is not needed,” he said, waving his hand with deprecating grace. “Me, I am above prejudices. Here one calls one’s self Giovanni or Giacomo, or Paolo, as with me; and when the person is respectable of years, Ser Giovanni or Ser Giacomo; but if one has not a name of baptism, it is the same, that make no difference——”

“Do you take me for a heathen that never was christened?” cried Harry. “My name is——” here he stopped and laughed, but grew redder, with a dusky colour; but “in for penny in for a pound,” as he had already remarked to himself—“my name is Isaac—Isaac Oliver, as I told you,” he said.

“Bene, bene!” said Paolo. “It is enough, I will say to the consul: here is Mister Isaac, who is my friend. He is English—man; yes, I recollect—man; and I respond for him. He will be so condescending as to take a situation; he will interpret like me; he will make the Italian into the English, and the English into the Italian.”

“But how can I do that?” said Harry, “when I don’t understand one word of your lingo? I can’t do that.”

Paolo’s countenance lengthened once more; but he speedily recovered himself.

“That will teach itself,” he said. “I will talk; I will tell you everything. Aspetto! there is now, presently, incessantly—an occasion. Komm, komm along; something strikes me in the head. But silence, the Vice-Consul, he it is that will settle all.”

Harry did not think much of Paolo’s recommendation; but yet the idea of appealing to the Vice-Consul was worth consideration. The thought of an Englishman to whom he could tell his story—or if not his story, yet a story, something which would seem as an account of himself—was like a rope thrown out to him amid a waste of waters. And, as an Englishman, he would have a right to be listened to. English officials are not like American, the natural vassals of their countrymen; but still, when a man is at his wit’s end, there is something in the idea that a person of authority, in whom he has a vested interest, is within reach, which is consolatory. To be introduced to this functionary, however, by Paolo, whose position did not seem to be very important, did not please Harry’s pride. He sent the little fellow away with a vague promise of thinking of it, which disappointed the friendly little man. Paolo could not restrain his anxious desire to be of use. He went off to the Farmacia to buy soap and tooth-powder for his amico, and even proposed to fetch him the little bicchierino of acquavite, with which some people begin their day, a proposal which filled Harry with horror. Paolo put his dressing-table in order with the care of a woman, and lingered, anxious to do something more. He would have brushed his friend’s clothes, if Harry would have let him. He was proud of his new discovery, the big Englishman, whom he had secured to himself, and whom he admired in proportion to his own smallness and inconsiderableness. Something of the pleasure of a nurse with an infant, and of a child with a new toy, was in his bustling anxious delight. When at last, however, he was half forced, half persuaded to go away, Paolo made a few steps back from the door and held up a warning finger.

“Mister Isaack mio,” he said, “one must not any more knock down. It is not understood in Livorno. That which can well do itself in England is different: here—it is not understood.” His face had become very grave, then a deprecatory smile of apology broke over it. “In Italy they are in many things behind,” he said. “It is not—understood.”

“Don’t be afraid, Paul-o,” said Harry, laughing, “I shan’t knock down anyone to-day. Even in England we don’t do it but when it is necessary. You may trust me, I shall knock nobody down to-day.”

“Alright, alright!” said Paolo, with a beaming countenance. He turned back again to instruct his friend at what hour it would be best to come to the bureau. “I will speak, and you shall be expected. I will respond for you,” the little man said.

At last he went away full of amiable intentions and zeal in his friend’s cause, zeal which deserved a better reward. For Harry did not build much upon the influence of Paolo. It hurt his pride to think of presenting himself anywhere under the wing of this little Italian clerk. He would stand upon his own qualities, he said to himself, not upon the ready faith and rash undertaking of a stranger; but though he put it in this way, it was not in reality because he objected to Paolo’s trust in him, or thought it rash as another man might have done, but because he felt himself Paolo’s social superior. It would be hard to say on what this consciousness was founded. Harry’s only superiority had been his family, and that he had put away. As he was dressing, he turned over a great many things in his mind which he might say to the Vice-Consul. Few young people understand how much better policy it is in all such cases to speak the truth than to invent the most plausible of stories, and Harry was not wiser than his kind. He made up various fictions about himself explaining how it was that he thus presented himself alone and unfriended in an altogether strange place—all of which he would have stated with a faltering tongue and abashed countenance, so as to impress the falsehood of them upon the hearer; for to invent excuses is one thing, and to produce them with force and consistency another. Successful lying, like everything else, wants practice; few men can succeed in it who only do it once in a way. It requires study, and careful consideration of probabilities, so that the artist shall not be put entirely out by an unforeseen question: and it needs an excellent memory, to retain all that has been said, so as not to contradict previous statements. Harry possessed none of these qualities, but then he was not aware of the want of them; and the thing which made him depart from tale after tale was not any suspicion of their weakness, or his weakness, but an inability to please himself in the details of his romance. And then the thought of going as it were hat in hand, to ask the Consul to provide him with employment, and the inevitable starting forth of little Paolo to pledge himself for everything his friend might say, discouraged him. He grew downhearted as he put himself into the best apparel he had, and brushed his hair, and endeavoured to look his best. Would it not be better to start off again, to go, though he had made up his mind against it, to America after all? There, there would be no language to learn, no difficulty in understanding what was said to him. He went down and swallowed his breakfast, coffee and bread, which seemed to him the most wretched fare, turning this over in his mind. But for one thing he did not like to be beaten; no Englishman does, he said to himself; and Harry was of the primitive, simple kind of Englishman who clings to all national characteristics. He could not bear to be beaten, to contradict himself as it were, and depart from his plan. While he was thinking of all this, however, a brilliant expedient occurred to him. Though he was reluctant to tell his own story, he was not disposed to screen himself by any fiction of excuses from the consequences of anything he had done; and it was undeniable that he had “got into a row” on the previous night. No Englishman, he reflected, would think the worse of a young fellow who had knocked down a drunken sailor to prevent him from molesting a woman; but it would be as well to go and tell the story of this little incident in case of any ulterior proceedings. Harry fairly chuckled over his own wisdom in hitting upon so admirable a way of presenting himself to the representative of his country. He had never before felt himself so clever. He munched his dry bread and drank his coffee with a wry face, but something like a mental relish at least. Little Paolo’s friendly conscience would not need to be strained. He would be able to bear witness of the facts in all sincerity, and, if anything were to come of it, there would be at least a friend in court, a valuable advocate secured. Antonio, the waiter, drew near while Harry came to this conclusion, and watched him dispatching his simple refreshment with friendly looks. The Italians admired the young Englishman’s fine limbs, and height and strength, and they made a pet of him because he was a stranger and helpless; perhaps the waiter was not without an eye to substantial rewards, but he had at the same time a most friendly eye to Harry’s helplessness, and an amiable desire to make him comfortable. He stood and watched him eating with sympathy.

“Ze gentleman would like an egg, perhaps, Sarr?” he said.

“I should like half-a-dozen,” said Harry with a sigh; “but no, no, never mind—never mind; for the present this will do.”

“Ze gentlemen Italian eat no breakfast,” said Antonio; “ze eat—after; but I will command for ze English gentleman, if it makes pleasure to him, ze English breakfast. There is already one here.”

“One—breakfast!” said Harry, surprised.

“One,” said Antonio, with a finger in the air, “English-man, and two tree Americans; ze eat of ze beef in ze early morning. It is extraordinary: eat of ze beef when you comes out of your bed. But it is the same—it is the same; that makes nothing to our padrone; and I will command it for ze gentleman if he will.”

“I wish you would,” said Harry, “another time; dry bread is not much to breakfast upon: and the bread is very queer stuff.”

“It is good bread,” said Antonio, “Sarr, very good bread; bettare far than ze bread of London;” he nodded his head as he spoke with self-satisfaction. “Ze gentleman would like me go wid him—show him all ze places, and ze grand catedral, and all that ze English gentleman go over ze world to see?”

“No, Antonio; I don’t care about cathedrals, but you can come with me to the English Consul’s if you like, and show me the way.”

“I like very moche, Sarr,” said Antonio, with a grin. “Ze English gentlemans please me. Zey is astonished at everyting. Ze pictures—O! bellissimi! and ze palazzi, and ze churches. It is noting but O! and O! as long as zey are walking about. But, Sarr,” said Antonio, coming closer, “Livorno is not moche. It is a city of trade. Com to Firenze, Sarr, if you would see beautiful pictures and beautiful houses. Ah! that is something to see. Or to Venezia—better still. I am of Venezia, Sarr. Ze gentleman will not say to Signor Paolo that I tell him so, but Livorno—pouff!” Antonio blew it away in a puff of disdain. “Firenze and Venezia, there is where you will see pictures—everyware—of Raphael and Michael Angelo, and Tiziano, and——”

“I don’t care much about pictures,” said Harry, calmly. “I like the shipping better. You can take me to the docks if you like. I don’t want you to tell me about them. I like to see things I know about myself. But I tell you what, Antonio, you may teach me the names in Italian, if you like; that will always be making a little progress,” Harry said, suddenly bethinking himself of Paolo’s suggestion.

Antonio’s face had lengthened by several inches. An English gentleman who did not want to see pictures was a personage of whom he had no understanding. He began to think that Harry was not a genuine Englishman after all.

“Ze signor is perhaps Tedesco—no? Or Americain—no? I have known many English,” said Antonio, gravely, “but zey all run after ze pictures. Ze gentleman is what you call an original. Benissimo! that makes noting to me. Ze sheeps in ze harbour are very fine sheeps. You will not see no bettare—no, not in England. Ze signor wishes—eh?—perhaps to make observations, to let ze Government—ze ministers know, Italy is now a great country, and ze others are jealous. You fear we will take ze trade all away?”

“Not so bad as that, Antonio,” said Harry, with a great laugh. “Where I have come from I wish I could show you the docks; they are about ten times as big as these.”

Antonio grinned from ear to ear. He did not believe a word of what Harry said. “If it pleases to ze gentleman,” he said, laughing too. He was perfectly tolerant of the joke, and glad to see his protegé cheerful. Then Harry jumped up from the table, poorly sustained for the business he had in hand by his light meal, but somewhat anxious to get through the ordeal he had proposed to himself. Antonio, however, who appeared presently in the well-worn and assiduously brushed costume of a laquais de place, could not quite let him off the inevitable sightseeing. He led him to the Duomo and into the great Square with a pretence that this was on the way to the Consul’s office, and made him look at again, whether he would or not, the same public buildings which he had gazed at dreamily as he wandered about the streets the day before, and looked at languidly in the moonlight under Paolo’s active guidance. He had been but twenty-four hours in Leghorn, and already he had associations with the street-corners, which probably he would never forget. Already this new world was acquiring known features of acquaintanceship; his life beginning to put forth threads like a spider’s web, and twist and twine, the new with the old. It startled Harry to feel that he was no longer a stranger here, where he had landed so forlorn. After the round which Antonio beguiled him into making, it was about eleven o’clock before they reached the door over which the well-known British symbol was put up. The outer office was full of people and business, sea-captains and merchants’ clerks, and even a few examples of the kind of traveller who is most common in Italy, he who travels for pleasure and not for business. Harry had to wait among the rest who were seeking an audience of the Vice-Consul. Here Antonio left him, and he could not see anything like the olive-countenance and brilliant costume of Paolo; but it was an English group among which he stood. The clerks even spoke English, if one or two of them displayed the tongue-tied hesitation which is common to all classes when they speak a language imperfectly understood. One of the tourists did his best to draw Harry into conversation, lamenting the cruel fate which had detained him in such a place. He was just starting for Pisa, this pilgrim said, where there was really something to see. “One might as well be in Liverpool as here,” he said. Harry did not make any reply. This was just the reason why he himself approved of Leghorn more than of any other place he had seen. When it came to his turn at last, almost all the other appellants and petitioners had been seen and dismissed. They all wanted something; and Harry’s new acquaintance had talked and worried him so much with his dislike to a place where there was so little to see, that he had almost forgot the manner in which he had arranged with himself to open his own story; when at length everybody else was despatched, and he had to go forward to his audience. His heart beat a little faster as he went in. The Vice-Consul was a man of a portly presence, something like an English merchant of the higher class, with grizzled hair, and an aspect of great respectability and authority. He was fully conscious of his dignity as the representative of the British Government, and of Her Majesty herself, amid an alien and inferior race. He did not think much of Italy or the Italian people, and he felt it was his mission in life to keep them down. He was seated in great state upon a large chair, which swung round with him when he moved. His table, his papers, the manner in which he appeared over them, with the air of a judge on the bench, was very imposing to a stranger, especially when that stranger was in difficulty and came to ask help. He made Harry a very formal bow, and pointed to a seat near, which had something of the air of a seat for the prisoner at the bar.