f the fifteenth century (for
the scene was of that kind), I fell asleep.

When I woke it was as though I had slept long; but I doubted the
feeling. The young sun still low in the sky, and the shadows not yet
shortened, puzzled me. I looked at my watch, but the dislocation of
habit which night marches produce had left it unwound. It marked a
quarter to three, which was absurd. I took the road somewhat stiffly
and wondering. I passed several small white cottages; there was no
clock in them, and their people were away. At last in a Trattoria, as
they served me with food, a woman told me it was just after seven; I
had slept but an hour.

Outside, the day was intense; already flies had begun to annoy the
darkened room within. Through the half-curtained door the road was
white in the sun, and the railway ran just beyond.

I paid my reckoning, and then, partly for an amusement, I ranged my
remaining pence upon the table, first in the shape of a Maltese cross,
then in a circle (interesting details!). The road lay white in the
sunlight outside, and the railway ran just beyond.

I counted the pence and the silver--there was three francs and a
little over; I remembered the imperial largesse at Lucca, the lordly
spending of great sums, where, now in the pocket of an obsequious man,
the pounds were taking care of themselves. I remembered how at Como I
had been compelled by poverty to enter the train for Milan. How little
was three francs for the remaining twenty-five miles to Siena! The
road lay white in the sunlight, and the railway ran just beyond.

I remembered the pleasing cheque in the post-office of Siena; the
banks of Siena, and the money changers at their counters changing
money at the rate of change.

'If one man,' thought I, 'may take five per cent discount on a sum of
money in the exchange, may not another man take discount off a walk of
over seven hundred miles? May he not cut off it, as his due,
twenty-five miserable little miles in the train?' Sleep coming over me
after my meal increased the temptation. Alas! how true is the great
phrase of Averroes (or it may be Boa-ed-din: anyhow, the Arabic
escapes me, but the meaning is plain enough), that when one has once
fallen, it is easy to fall again (saving always heavy falls from
cliffs and high towers, for after these there is no more falling)....
Examine the horse's knees before you buy him; take no ticket-of-leave
man into your house for charity; touch no prospec