ings
neatly wrapped in paper, and thanked me for the five francs! Which
indicated to me that the good small folk of Italy had not materially
changed since I had left the country.

We came to Venice, and went to a hotel, where we had a room given to us
which, had we wished to give a ball, would have left nothing to be
desired. I counted in it twenty-seven chairs and seven tables, all at
such a distance from one another that they seemed not to be on speaking
terms. I do not think I ever got quite so far as the upper end of that
room while I inhabited it--it was probably somewhere in Austria. I have
spoken of having met Mr. Wright at Heidelberg. He was from Wilkesbarre,
Pennsylvania. The next day after my arrival I found among the names of
the departed, "Signore Wright-_Kilkes_, from Barre, Pennsylvania,
America." This reminded me of the Anglo-American who was astonished at
Rome at receiving invitations and circulars addressed to him as
"Illustrissimo Varanti Solezer." It turned out that an assistant,
reading aloud to the clerk the names from the trunks, had mistaken a very
large "WARRANTED SOLE LEATHER" for the name of the owner.

And this on soles reminds me that there was a _femme sole_ or lone
acrimonious British female at our hotel, who declared to me one evening
that she had _never_ in all her life been so _insulted_ as she was that
day at a banker's; and the insult consisted in this, that she, although
quite unknown to him, had asked him to cash a cheque on London, which he
had declined to do. I remarked that no banker who did business properly
ever ought to cash a cheque from a total stranger.

"Sir," said the lady, "do _I look_ like an impostor?"

"Madame," I replied, "I have seen thieves and wretches of the vilest type
who could not have been distinguished from either of us as regards
respectability of appearance. You do not appear to know much about such
people."

"I am happy to say, sir," replied the lady with intense acidity, "that
_I_ do _not_." But she added triumphantly, "What do you say when I tell
you that I had my _cheque-book_? How could I have possessed it if I had
not a right to draw?"

"Any scamp," I replied, "can deposit a few pounds in a bank, buy a cheque-
book, and then draw his money."

But the next day she came to me in radiant sneering triumph. She had
found another banker, who was a gentleman, with a marked emphasis, who
had cashed her cheque. How many people there are i