ld have managed it some way so she could
had her way. Not that she would do anything aginst the wishes of the
rest of us, but she wuz happy there, and the rest of us all liked it
and found plenty of things to interest us, but at last we did set out
for Naples.

I had sot a good deal of store on seein' the Bay of Naples, and so had
the other females of our party. Robert Strong had seen it before. And
my pardner when I tried to roust up his interest and admiration by
quotin' the remark so often made: "See Naples and die."

He said he wouldn't do any such thing, not if he could keep alive.
"But," sez he, "more'n as likely as not the vile Italian cookin' will
be too much for me and your prophecy may come true; I may see Naples
and die--from starvation."

But I told him it wuz the incomparable beauty of the seen that wuz
meant, that when you'd seen that you had beheld the best and most
beautiful the world could offer you and you might as well pass away
without tryin' any further.

And Josiah said he would ruther see the Jonesville creek down in the
paster back of the house, where it makes a bend round our sugar house
and the sugar maples grow clear down to the water's edge, and pussy
willers lean down, so the pussy most touch the water, and you can see
the brook trout darting about over the clean pebbles, than to see
forty Napleses.

I too felt a good deal the same, but wouldn't encourage him by sayin'
so. And the Bay of Naples wuz beautiful, its beauty stole on you
onbeknown and growed and growed till it possessed your hull heart and
soul, if you had a soul. It lays like a big blue liquid gem in its
encirclin' settin' of fadeless green and flashing white walls, and
crowned by the hantin' dretful beauty of Mount Vesuvius.

Naples is a big city, the biggest in Italy, and as easy to git into
from land as Jonesville is, only on its principle avenues there are
what they call barriers where they collect duties on provisions, etc.,
brought from the country.

Josiah thought that would be a splendid thing for him. Sez he, "I
believe I shall have Ury help me and build a barrier in front of my
house and take a tax for big loads that go by. Why," sez he, "at a
cent a load I could make a splendid livin'."

But he won't try it. As I told him he might just as well lanch right
out on Jonesville creek as a corsair, "and I've always said," sez I,
"that never would I live on brigandage."

Some of the streets of Naples are narrer a