sir--a very bad business, and I know no more
than them as was shot down in the front of the Castle Hotel how it came
about or what we meant to do. We were like a barrel of gunpowder that
had been broken up and scattered about the road. A spark came, and
poof!--we went off with a bang, and couldn't stop ourselves. Yes, this
is a bad business, too, this strike of to-day, and there's a good many
thousand men going about idle and hungry who were busy and full a month
ago. I don't feel the bitterness of it myself so much, because I have a
little store in the house. I had been saving it to buy another chest of
drawers to stand there, opposite the door, but it's going out now in
bread and meat, and I don't know whether I shall live to save up enough
after the trouble's over, for I'm getting old now, look you."

CHAPTER XIII.

MOSQUITOES AND MONACO.

Up to the end of October, in ordinary seasons, the mosquitoes hold
their own against all comers along the full length of the Riviera. For
some unexplained reasons they clear out earlier from Genoa, though the
atmosphere may be as unbearably close as at other points of the coast
which mosquitoes have in most melancholy manner marked as their own.
Perhaps it is the noise of the city that scares them. The people live
in the street as much as possible, and therein conduct their converse
in highly-pitched notes. I have a strong suspicion that, like the
habitation jointly rented by Messrs. Box and Cox, Genoa is tenanted by
two distinct populations. One fills the place by day and throughout the
evening up to about ten o'clock; after this hour it disappears, and
there is a brief interval of rare repose. About 2 a.m. the Cox of this
joint tenancy appears on the scene, and by four there is a full tide
of bustle that murders sleep as effectually as was ever done by Macbeth.
I do not wonder that the mosquitoes (who, I have the best reason to
know, are insects of the finest discrimination and the most exacting
good taste) quit Genoa at the earliest possible moment.

The most delightful spot in or near the city is, to my mind, Campo
Santo, the place where rich Genoese go when they die. The burial-ground
is a large plot of ill-kept land, where weeds grow, and mean little
crosses rear their heads. Round this run colonnades adorned with
statuary, generally life-size, and frequently of striking merit.
Originally, it is presumable that the sculptor's art was invoked in
order to perpetuate th