1830.3 The Half-Hanged Italian. 37 



the mourning-suit put on in sorrow for a lengthened widowhood. The 

 aspect of the society was as gloomy as that of the elements. Here and 

 there a brace of politicians settled the destiny of nations with a nod, or a 

 shrug, or a humph ! Dandies yawned and twirled their thumbs ; and 

 women, wondrous to relate, were silent, and plied their needles instead 

 of their tongues. Conversation was completely at a stand. The usual 

 novelties on the subject of the weather had already been broached : it 

 had been pronounced bad, shocking, execrable ; execrable, shocking, 

 bad : the topic was worn to tatters. Then there was the opera ; but 

 what does a provincial know of the opera ? He talks about the ballet, 

 about entrechats and pirouettes, much in the style in which a Mahometan 

 believer raves of the black eyes and coral lips of ever-blooming Houris : 

 he can even describe the position of the building itself, with as much 

 precision as a Hornerian commentator points out the ancient site of Troy. 

 The case was hopeless. For my own part I had tried the conversational 

 powers of my neighbours, and in despair had half resolved upon the 

 dangerous experiment of making an amicable advance to a toothless, 

 pursy, purblind old lapdog, that by dint of scraping, and turning, and 

 re-turning, had wriggled himself into a snug bed upon the softest easy- 

 chair in the room. A constant wheezing, asthmatic growl, the exact 

 counterpart of a superannuated pensioner's lament, had hitherto kept me 

 at a respectful distance from the little domestic nuisance that in con- 

 sideration of a ten years' indulgence, and in pity to his growing in- 

 firmities, was tolerated to snarl at the guests, and snap at the servants 

 who in the exercise of their functions were forced to invade the hearth- 

 rug which this autocrat of the chimney-corner considered his legitimate 

 territory. I absolutely shuddered at my own temerity : but what was 

 to be done ? I sighed in vain for an opening the slightest glimmering 

 loophole through which to insinuate a tale, a smart anecdote, or some 

 exhilarating piece of scandal. But no ; my well-filled budget was to 

 all appearance destined to remain closed for that evening, when oh 

 miraculous interposition of fate ! a good-natured old gentleman mut- 

 tered something about the necessity of capital punishment in a state. 

 This grand question once started, the shock became electric. Each 

 had his argument in store ; each had his provision of common-place 

 tediousness ready cut and dry. All spoke at once : an admirable 

 mode of discussion, inasmuch as it saves time, and exercises the 

 lungs. Here was a glorious opportunity for me. Like a skilful tac- 

 tician, I determined to economise my force till the heat of the opening 

 fire should be over, and then, with the field all my own, to rush 

 with the corps de reserve of eloquent narrative upon my exhausted 

 opponents. 



Watching the opportune moment when the tide of argument seemed 

 rather on the ebb, I proposed to favour the company with the details of 

 a strange adventure, precisely as I had heard them from the lips of a 

 singular personage whom I had met some months previously in the 

 course of my eccentric wanderings. I fondly flattered myself that the 

 episode which I was about to relate, in illustration of the important ques- 

 tion then in debate, would build me up at least a twelve months' fame 

 as a dealer in anecdote. Figure to yourself, reader, a dark-visaged 

 Italian bandit, whose eagle eye had watched many aveturino slowly wind- 

 ing along the romantic steep; one that from the shelter of a projecting crag 

 had often calculated, with mathematical precision, the moment for pounc- 



