dles shone
brightly, particularly struck Caper.

'You see,' said Rocjean, 'as anyone else can see, that those chandeliers
are made of egg-shells. Now, I will bet you a hat that I will ask four
men, one after another, who may come to look in this window, what those
chandeliers are made of, and three at least, if not all four of them,
will answer, 'Who knows?' (_Chi lo sa._)

'Done!' said Caper.

Rocjean asked four men, one after another. All four answered; 'Who
knows?'

But to continue the bath-hunt: Van Brick was thrown over by the girl's
answer, and next asked an old woman, who was standing at the door of a
house, buying broccoli from a man with a hand-cart.

'Can _you_ tell me where the bath is?'

'The bath?'

'Yes, the bath.'

'Is it where they boil water for the English?'

'That must be the shop,' quoth Brick.

'That's the place,' pointing with her finger to a house on the opposite
side of the way.

Van Brick crossed over, and after five minutes' hunt over the whole
house, was coming down disheartened, when he saw a pretty girl, about
eighteen years old, standing by the doorway.

'Can you tell me where the bath is?'

'_Seguro!_ I attend to them. You can't have a warm bath for two or three
hours yet, for there is no fire; but you can have a cold one.'

'Well, let me have it as quickly as possible.'

'Yes, sir. We have no soap for sale, but you can get it two doors off.'

Van Brick went out, and after a time returned with a cake of soap.

'Signore,' said the girl, when he went back, 'the water is all running
out of the hole in the bottom of the tub, and I can't stop it.'

'H'm! Show me the tub; I am a splendid mechanic.'

The hole being stopped, the tub was rapidly filling with water. Van
Brick, in anticipation, was enjoying his bath; when in rushed the
attendant.

'Signore, you will have to wait a few minutes--until I wash some
towels.'

Van Brick was in extremis. Taking a gold scudo, one of those dear little
one-dollar pieces the Romans call _far-falle_ (butterflies) from his
pocket, he thus addressed her:

'Maiden, rush round the corner and buy me a yard of any thing that will
dry me; I don't care what it is, except salt fish.'

'Oh! but these English are bursting with money,' thought the girl, and
thus thinking, she made great haste, only stopping to tell three or four
friends about the crazy man that was round at her place, who didn't want
salt fish to make him dry.

'Behold me ba