scape?"

His mouth curled in scorn at the very idea.

"Try to think of how much spaghetti you could buy for a song."

His eyes and mouth twitched. But he sighed, and shook his head.

"Do you know," said he, "when you demonstrated against us with your
dynamite it was instantly concluded that you were some new kind of a god
come to inhabit the beach. It was proposed that I go against you singing
a charm that should drive you away. But, as you saw, I came only at the
spear's point. Do you think I was afraid? I was; but not of your
godship. I had seen your tracks, I had seen the beach rise to your
explosive, and I knew that as one Christian gentleman I had nothing on
the lines of violence to fear from another. Your explosion was like a
note, asking me when I should next call to bring fewer attendants. I
_was_ afraid; I was afraid that you were not one, alone, but several,
and that you would compel me to return with you to a world in which,
take it for all and all, the good things, such as restaurants,
artificial heat, Havana cigars, and Steinway pianos, are nullified by
climatic conditions unsuited to vocal chords, fatal jealousies among
members of the same artistic professions, and a public that listens but
does not hear; or that hears and does not listen. But you shall stop
with me a few days, in my house. You shall see for yourself that among
all artists I alone enjoy an appreciation and solicitude that are better
than gold."

Signor Shall-we-let-it-go-at-that had not lied to me. And all he asked
was, with many apologies, that I should treat him with a certain
reverence, a little as if he were a conqueror. So all the way to the
village I walked two paces right flank rear, and wore a solemn and
subdued expression. My host approached the dwellings of his people with
an exaggeration of tragi-comic stride, dragging his high-heeled feet as
Henry Irving used, raising and advancing his chest to the bursting
point, and holding his head so proudly that the perpendicular feather of
his cap leaned backward at a sharp angle. With his scarlet soldier's
coat, all burst along the seams, and not meeting by a yard over his red
silk undershirt, with his bit of broken mirror dangling at his waist
like a lady's jewelled "vanity set," with his china-ink black mustache
and superb beard, he presented for all the purposes of the time and
place an appearance in keeping with the magnificence of his voice and of
his dreams.

When we got amo