Best chocolate I ever tasted out of
Paris. Found the _menu_ for dinner on the table all right; the wine is
_au choix_, and I begin with La Rose and La Veuve Cliquot. A note from
her referring to something said last night; she is ill and cannot see
me, but encloses an order on Parodi of Genoa, in favor of the nobile
Signor il Maggiore M'Caskey, for three thousand seven hundred and
forty-eight francs, and a small tortoise-shell box, containing
eighty-six double ducats in gold, so that it would seem I have fallen
into a '_vrai Californie_' here. Reflected, and replied with a refusal;
a M'Caskey cannot stoop to this. Reproved her for ignoring the character
to whom she addressed such a proposal, and reiterated my remark of last
night, that she never rose to the level at which she could rightly take
in the native chivalry of my nature.

"Inquired if my presence had been announced to Sir O., and learned it
had. Orders given to treat me with distinguished consideration, but
nothing said of an audience.

"Pigeons again for supper, with apology; quails had been sent for to
Messina, and expected to-morrow. Shot at a champagne-flask in the sea,
and smoked. Sir O.'s tobacco exquisite, and the supply so ample, I am
making a _petite provision_ for the future.

"Full moon. Shot at the camellias out of my window. Knocked off
seventeen, when I heard a sharp cry,--a stray shot, I suppose. Shut the
casement and went to bed.

"_Thursday_.--Gardener's boy--flesh wound in the calf of the leg; hope
Sir O. may hear of it and send for me.

"A glorious capon for dinner, stuffed with oysters,--veritable oysters.
Drank Mrs. M'C.'s health in the impression that this was a polite
attention on her part. No message from Sir O.

"_Friday_.--A general fast; a lentil soup and a fish; good but meagre;
took it out in wine and tobacco. Had the gardener's boy up, and
introduced him to sherry-cobbler. The effect miraculous; danced
Tarantella till the bandage came off and he fainted.

"_Saturday_.--Rain and wind; macaroni much smoked; cook lays it on the
chimney, that won't draw with a Levant wind. Read over my instructions
again, and understand them as little as before: 'You will hold yourself
at the orders of the Count d'Amalfi till further instructions from this
department.' Vague enough all this; and for anything I see, or am likely
to see, of this Count, I may pass the autumn here. Tried to attract
Sir O.'s attention by knocking off the oranges at