Maggiore, the old hotel kept by Papa Bolangaro, and watching the sunset
over Isola Bella and the lake, my friend Blome knocked away the ashes
from his Vevay segar--wretched segars those--and dreamily gazed at the
beautiful scene before him.

_Vino Barbera_, as they wrote its name in the bill, was not a bad wine;
a bottle of it assisted imagination as a percussion-cap does the powder
in your rifle. In the present ease it also brought on an explosion, for
as Blome knocked off the segar-ashes for the second time, he heard a
loud exclamation from a balcony on the _primo piano_ below him. He
looked down. You have seen, I have seen, all the world has seen the
Italian woman of paintings and engravings--black eyes, black hair,
golden and red-peach complexion--there she was.

My friend passed down apologies for his oversight; an oversight--bowing
_preux-chevalier_-ly--he was afraid unpardonable, when he saw the object
he had overlooked. The beautiful Italian received the apology most
charmingly. It proved the overture to a brilliant adventure culminating
in Milan.

'You observe,' said Blome to me, 'what real benefits can be derived from
smoking. Here have I formed the acquaintance of a very pretty woman, who
will fall desperately in love with me, who will call me by my first name
within two days, all through segar-ashes. I had a friend in Jena once,
the university-town----'

'Where you got that sword-cut over the cheek?'

'Where I received it. Good! My friend in Jena was a theological student,
a very steady young man. While others would come reeling home from the
beer-kneips, he would be careful always to keep steady and under gentle
sail; but he had one weakness, a want of confidence while in the
presence of woman--one strong point, pipe-smoking.

'One afternoon he was smoking a pipe at his chamber-window, and
regarding the passers-by in the street below. When his pipe was smoked
out, he emptied its ashes in the street; as he did so, he looked down,
_Himmel_! The ashes fell on the head of Fraeulein Baumann, who dwelt in
the same house in the story below him, and who was at that time knitting
a pair of stockings and also looking at the passengers in the street.

'The theological student drew his head in from the window with the
quickness of a turtle. He sat down and meditated.

'Now Fraeulein Baumann was a good-hearted blonde, very well calculated to
make a good wife to somebody, and her mother, the widow Baumann,
dete