292 The Manof lll-Omai. [SepV. 



I Avrithed at the sound ; but he was not easily disconcerted, and with 

 a smile he began : 



" At daybreak I ran away from Reggio, to see what all the world 



was running to see — Vesuvius in his glory. I had a guitar, a passable 

 voice, a handsome pair of legs, and a light heart. With those accom- 

 plishments, if a man cannot make his way through the world, the fault 

 is his own ; and with those I made my way gallantly from Calabria up 

 to nearly this very spot. But here my trials began. As I was singing a 

 stanza, to the great applause of a circle of brown beauties, a party of 

 officers of the Customs burst in upon us, swore that we were all smug- 

 glers together, and, having pilfered the greater number of my auditors in 

 the name of the king, seized upon me as the ringleader. I spent that 

 night, and some others too, in the dungeons of the custom-house. I\Iy 

 first determination was revenge upon the whole human race ; but, as my 

 passion cooled, I narrowed this general war to the fellow who had espe- 

 cially singled me out, and robbed me of my guitar besides. After a week 

 of the usual prison pleasures under the most humane of all monarchies 

 — that is, after being almost stifled and almost starved — I saw my 

 custom-house friend open the door of my cell. I flew at him as far as 

 my chain would let me, and poured my whole vocabulary of Avi'ath on 

 his head. He took it with a true Neapolitan sneer, promised me another 

 week of the dungeon, and kept his word. When he returned again, I 

 was calm. He congratulated me on my good sense, questioned me about 

 Calabria, and finished by offering me a share of the profits of a grand 

 smuggling transaction, in which he was the principal. I was all acqui- 

 escence. IVIy chain fell off' immediately. I was taken privately to his 

 house, and fed like a German elector. A felucca was fitted out, and 

 with the gains of a hfe of loyal extortion, I was commissioned to buy 

 Barcelona brandies, which were to revisit the lovely shores of Naples, and 

 rejoice the next Carnival, without troubling the collectors of his majesty's 

 rights and dues. ]My Calabrese life had trained me to the sea ; and my 

 management of the felucca in the bay was considered a first-rate specimen 

 of seamanship. The officer was enchanted ; so was his handsome, black- 

 eyed, and very impudent wife. I might have carried her with me as 

 one of the ventures ; but I owed the husband a grudge, and that at least 

 was not the way to punish him. I sailed at last, reached Barcelona, 

 enjoyed that delightful city for a month, and concluded my career by 

 selling the felucca, putting the money in my purse, and enclosing my 

 tavern bills to the signor, with a significant hint that any delay in their 

 discharge, or any inquiry after me, would produce a public discovery of 

 the whqle affair. — You see, Blilordo, I had foretold his ill-luck, and it 

 was no fault of mine if fate would have it so. 



" But where can an Italian live out of Italy ? I sold my villa, my 

 horses, and my share in the hazard-table of the Duke of Bandelero — a 

 grandee who had claims to the throne of Spain ! and in company with 

 whom I had for three months raised more dues on noble exchequers, 

 than his IMajesty of the tAvo Indiasin as many years. I sent the money 

 on board a Florentine ship in the offing ; and, for reasons of my own, 

 made my arrangements for bidding farewell to Barcelona and its beauties 

 by moonlight. Night fell ; I figured at a masquerade, was the charm of 

 a host of senoras, the envy of as many senors, and was in the act of lis- 

 tening to a long detail of complaints of my friend the duke from the rosy 

 lips of the duchess herself, just as the bell tolled twelve. At the sound, I 



