t was most unwise to have spoken with
him."

"What would you have?" said the other, with a shrug of his shoulders.
"He came to set this clock to rights,--it plays some half-dozen airs
from Mercadante and Verdi,--and he knows how to arrange them. He goes
every morning to the Tuileries, to Moquard, the Emperor's secretary: he,
too, has an Italian musical clock, and he likes to chat with Baretti."

"I distrust these fellows greatly."

"That is so English!" said Caffarelli; "but we Italians have a finer
instinct for knavery, just as we have a finer ear for music; and as we
detect a false note, so we smell a treachery, where you John Bulls would
neither suspect one or the other. Baretti sees the Prince Napoleon, too,
almost every day, and with Pietri he is like a brother."

"But we can have no dealings with a fellow that harbors such designs."

"_Caro amico_, don't you know by this time that no Italian of the class
of this fellow ever imagines any other disentanglement in a political
question than by the stiletto? It is you, or I, or somebody else, must,
as they phrase it, 'pay with his skin.' Fortunately for the world, there
is more talk than action in all this; but if you were to oppose it, and
say, 'None of this,' you 'd only be the first victim. We put the knife
in politics just as the Spanish put garlic in cookery: we don't know any
other seasoning, and it has always agreed with our digestion."

"Can Giacomo come in to wind up the clock, Eccellenza?" said
Caffarelli's servant, entering at the moment; and as the Count nodded
an assent, a fat, large, bright-eyed man of about forty entered, with
a mellow frank countenance, and an air of happy joyous contentment that
might have sat admirably on a well-to-do farmer.

"Come over and have a glass of wine, Giacomo," said the Count, filling a
large glass to the brim with Burgundy; and the Italian bowed with an air
of easy politeness first to the Count and next to Maitland, and then,
after slightly tasting the liquor, retired a little distance from the
table, glass in hand.

"My friend here," said the Count, with a motion of his hand towards
Maitland, "is one of ourselves, Giacomo, and you may speak freely before
him."

"I have seen the noble signor before," said Giacomo, bowing
respectfully, "at Naples, with His Royal Highness the Count of
Syracuse."

"The fellow never forgets a face; nobody escapes him," muttered
Caffarelli; while he added, aloud, "Well, there are f