cows; but I was no less heartily grateful for his permission to use the Spartelli library, and for the reading-*lamp which he borrowed for me from an American.
All these acts of kindness, however, were done with such an appearance of ease that I even ventured upon one more request.
"Could I use the piano to accompany my Italian friend?"
He did not hesitate to banish the six occupants of "mattresses" in the drawing-room from their domain until we finished "La Tosca" and "Madame Butterfly." Then an American begged me to play the "Swannee River," and nearly broke down before he had even got to the chorus.
"Did I not tell you," said the sympathetic Naim, "Poor things, they are so far away from home!"
I suppose I should not be too severe upon these merchants among the ruins of their past glory, and, to do them justice, they are accepting defeat like good sportsmen. The Dutchman is as merry as a cricket, despite his £80,000 "gone west," his thirty years' work undone for ever, his fine farm burnt to cinders.
I wish he would make a book out of all he has seen and done in this land of romance. No one knows it better, and, if my own sympathies are apt to be with the brigands from whom he has twice suffered capture (because they only rob the rich), I have enjoyed few men's tales of adventure more than his. Good and strong men are rare enough, and I know this one would never forget a friend. If danger threatened, it would only reach you over his dead body.
