e that their famous city,
built and cemented with their ancestors' blood, is now only a museum.

When it is fine and warm the music hall does not exist, and it is
in the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele that the Florentines sit and talk,
or walk and talk, or listen to the band which periodically inhabits a
stand near the centre; and it was here that I watched the reception
of the news that Italy had declared war on Turkey, a decision which
while it rejoiced the national warlike spirit of the populace could
not but carry with it a reminder that wars have to be paid for. Six
or seven months later I saw the return to Florence of the first
troops from the war, and their reception was terrific. In the mass
they were welcome enough; but as soon as units could be separated
from the mass the fun began, for they were carried shoulder high to
whatever destination they wanted, their knapsacks and rifles falling
to proud bearers too; while the women clapped from the upper windows,
the shrewd shopkeepers cheered from their doorways, and the crowd which
followed and surrounded the hero every moment increased. As for the
heroes, they looked for the most part a good deal less foolish than
Englishmen would have done; but here and there was one whose expression
suggested that the Turks were nothing to this. One poor fellow had
his coat dragged from his back and torn into a thousand souvenirs.

The restaurants of Florence are those of a city where the natives
are thrifty and the visitors dine in hotels. There is one expensive
high-class house, in the Via Tornabuoni--Doney e Nipoti or Doney
et Neveux--where the cooking is Franco-Italian, and the Chianti and
wines are dear beyond belief, and the venerable waiters move with a
deliberation which can drive a hungry man--and one is always hungry
in this fine Tuscan air--to despair. I like better the excellent
old-fashioned purely Italian food and Chianti and speed at Bonciani's
in the Via de Panzani, close to the station. These twain are the
best. But it is more interesting to go to the huge Gambrinus in
the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele, because so much is going on all the
time. One curious Florentine habit is quickly discovered and resented
by the stranger who frequents a restaurant, and that is the system of
changing waiters from one set of tables to another; so that whereas
in London and Paris the wise diner is true to a corner because it
carries the same service with it, in Florence he must follow t