n the cause of the disturbance had ceased, he soon fell asleep, and
when I began to lather my face he was artistically playing a "_fluto_"
obligate with his nose. At this I began to knock on the door, and he at
once called out:

"What now? What you want?"

"I want you to stop snoring or I'll alarm the house and have you
expelled."

"Ah, you get even with me, you do! I catch the leetle joke. What will
you haf to drink, signor? the wine is on me."

We left Rome and went by train to--

POMPEII

On a former visit to Pompeii I thought it a grand place, but after all,
when the traveller has seen the best, it is ordinary and commonplace. It
was a town of only about 30,000 people and almost all of them escaped, so
no particular distinction belongs to it in any respect.

We continued on to Naples, and on the following morning took a local
steamer for Sorrento. We had a look at Vesuvius, which was quiet and
somewhat depressed--as it had lost six hundred feet of its cone at the
last eruption.

SORRENTO

Landing at Sorrento we took a thirty-mile carriage drive along the
precipitous coast, resting and lunching in a convent at Amalfi, perched
high up on the hillside whither we had to climb. Then another drive to
the train, which landed us back in Naples in the early hours of the
morning.

MONTE CARLO

Again we embarked on the _Cork_, and landed at Villefranche. Next day we
drove through Nice and on to Monte Carlo, where we witnessed the motor
boat races. After dining at the _Hotel de l'Hermitage_, we visited the
temple of chance with its twenty-five tables, devoted to a variety of
games. It was all a distinct disappointment. The much vaunted
decorations on the walls of the rooms were polychromatic but
uninteresting--attempts at classic decoration such as an Italian
sign-painter could easily equal when working for his board. The building
itself was overdone in elaboration, and represented French architecture
in the era when it had "broken loose." The grounds, however, were fine
and the flower display the finest to be found anywhere. The players, men
and women, were a debased crowd, of all nationalities. Sordid greed had
eaten into their faces and there was no delight for them in anything
except in grabbing the gold the turn of the wheel gave them--and it
didn't give them much in return for what they staked. The games are
"square." There is no cheating other than the well understood
"percentage" i