ivine Child symbolic gifts of gold,
frankincense, and myrrh, really brought joints of beef, turkeys, and
"plum-pudding," that vile and indigestible mixture at which an Italian
shrugs his shoulders in visible disgust. There is something barbaric, I
suppose, in the British customs still--something that reminds one of
their ancient condition when the Romans conquered them--when their
supreme idea of enjoyment was to have an ox roasted whole before them
while they drank "wassail" till they groveled under their own tables in
a worse condition than overfed swine. Coarse and vulgar plenty is still
the leading characteristic at the dinners of English or American
parvenus; they have scarcely any idea of the refinements that can be
imparted to the prosaic necessity of eating--of the many little graces
of the table that are understood in part by the French, but that
perhaps never reach such absolute perfection of taste and skill as at
the banquets of a cultured and clever Italian noble. Some of these are
veritable "feasts of the gods," and would do honor to the fabled
Olympus, and such a one I had prepared for Guido Ferrari as a greeting
to him on his return from Rome--a feast of welcome and--farewell!

All the resources of the hotel at which I stayed had been brought into
requisition. The chef, a famous cordon bleu, had transferred the work
of the usual table d'hote to his underlings, and had bent the powers of
his culinary intelligence solely on the production of the magnificent
dinner I had ordered. The landlord, in spite of himself, broke into
exclamations of wonder and awe as he listened to and wrote down my
commands for different wines of the rarest kinds and choicest vintages.
The servants rushed hither and thither to obey my various behests, with
looks of immense importance; the head waiter, a superb official who
prided himself on his artistic taste, took the laying-out of the table
under his entire superintendence, and nothing was talked of or thought
of for the time but the grandeur of my proposed entertainment.

About six o'clock I sent my carriage down to the railway station to
meet Ferrari as I had arranged; and then, at my landlord's invitation,
I went to survey the stage that was prepared for one important scene of
my drama--to see if the scenery, side-lights, and general effects were
all in working order. To avoid disarranging my own apartments, I had
chosen for my dinner-party a room on the ground-floor of the hot