but everything, as at Selinunte, was clean and
tidy. On the wall was an extensive eruption of postcards and among them
those that had come from me. As I looked on the tranquil whitewash of
this secluded caserma, dotted with views of our complicated and populous
London, with its theatres and motor buses and the feverish rush of its
tumult, I found myself wondering what it would be like to listen to the
_Pastoral Symphony_ in the _Messiah_, performed with occasional
interpolations from _Till Eulenspiegel_.

The brigadier proposed a stroll while the guards prepared supper--they
take it by turns to be cook, one each day, but this being an occasion,
all three would be cooks to-night. We called at a cottage in the hope of
buying some fish, but the weather had been too bad and there was none.
We met a young man, however, who had a kid for sale and wanted 95
centesimi per kilo; the brigadier would only give 80. The young man
could not deal; the kid belonged to his father, and he had no power to
exceed his instructions; he would go home and call at the caserma in the
morning with the ultimissimo prezzo. We passed a great hole in the
ground like a dry well. The brigadier said that if it were not so very
near the caserma, it might do as a hiding-place for any one flying from
justice, or for brigands to conceal a prisoner.

"Or for smugglers to keep their spoils in," I said; and the brigadier
chuckled.

He showed me the stone that had been put up to mark the spot at which the
Madonna was landed by the French sailors as they returned from
Alexandria. We strolled back and tied up the pig which had broken loose
and, the brigadier said, was not yet old enough, meaning that there would
be no pork for supper yet awhile. With all this difficulty about pork
and fish and kid, the simple life, as lived at the caserma, appeared to
be less simple than it might have been if the shops had been a little
nearer.

Supper consisted of chicory served with the water it had been boiled in,
to which was added some oil; there was also bread and wine, then chicken
and afterwards poached eggs which they call eggs in their shirtsleeves.
Before we had finished I told them that we have a proverb in England that
too many cooks spoil the broth, and added that I had never known
precisely how many were supposed to be too many, but that, judging by the
excellence of the repast, certainly more than three would be required in
the caserma of Custonaci. I