98 EXCURSIONS IN MADEIRA 



another occasion, a more dramatic vein of pleasantry was pursued 

 by the ItaUan, who humbly requested the Governor to abdicate, 

 and to allow him to appoint a Successor, a Corregidor, and a 

 Commandant, to conduct the apprehension and trial of a criminal, 

 who was afterwards hung behind the door with such capital effect, 

 that the ladies all but fainted; and I was enabled to discover for 

 which of the aspirants Donna Antonio was most particularly 

 interested. Eut it was the embarrassment, awkwardness, and 

 timidity, with which the inferiors chosen by him would ape the 

 airs of offices to which they had never dreamed of aspiring, while 

 the true possessors were looking on, which Battista had principally 

 in view. 



About ten o'clock the officers took leave, some to trot into the 

 country, and magnetise their own families with the polish they 

 were thus gradually acquiring. The ItaUan went to sleep in his 

 shop, and I (after partaking of a hberal supper of cold fowl, fruit, 

 and preserves, made as I was assured by the lady herself) was 

 conducted to a comfortable room, with a bed decked out with 

 flounced muslin sheets, and a glazed counterpane. The Governor, 

 who always waited breakfast and dinner, and sent the drummer 

 to scour the neighbourhood in the hope of finding me, insisted 

 that I shovild come home in time one day, and invited the Itahan, 

 in his politeness, who insisted first on shaving me (seating me on 

 a barrel of dried fish, which he had in the shop), and then shaved 

 himself, neither was he at all discomposed, when the Governor's 

 Mercury ran into the shop out of breath, and bounced up against 

 him (which by-the-by he could not well avoid, considering his 

 own speed, and the small space in which he was obliged to pull 

 up, in awful admiration of the universal genius of my friend), to 

 announce, that the Governor was waiting dinner for the Senhores. 

 We had an excellent dinner, and the intelligence of the Governor 



