me of the more salient couplets. Tobacco
had become a dead business, she said, now that the popular edict had
gone forth against 'smoking gold into the pockets of the Tedeschi.' None
smoked except officers and Englishmen.

"I am an Englishman," he said.

"And not an officer?" she asked; but he gave no answer. "Englishmen are
rare in winter, and don't like being mobbed," said the woman.

Nodding to her urgent petition, he deferred the lighting of his cigar.
The vetturino requested him to jump up quickly, and a howl of "No
smoking in Milan--fuori!--down with tobacco-smokers!" beset the
carriage. He tossed half-a-dozen cigars on the pavement derisively. They
were scrambled for, as when a pack of wolves are diverted by a garment
dropped from the flying sledge, but the unluckier hands came after his
heels in fuller howl. He noticed the singular appearance of the streets.
Bands of the scum of the population hung at various points: from time
to time a shout was raised at a distance, "Abasso il zigarro!" and "Away
with the cigar!" went an organized file-firing of cries along the open
place. Several gentlemen were mobbed, and compelled to fling the cigars
from their teeth. He saw the polizta in twos and threes taking counsel
and shrugging, evidently too anxious to avoid a collision. Austrian
soldiers and subalterns alone smoked freely; they puffed the harder
when the yells and hootings and whistlings thickened at their heels.
Sometimes they walked on at their own pace; or, when the noise swelled
to a crisis, turned and stood fast, making an exhibition of curling
smoke, as a mute form of contempt. Then commenced hustlings and a
tremendous uproar; sabres were drawn, the whitecoats planted themselves
back to back. Milan was clearly in a condition of raging disease. The
soldiery not only accepted the challenge of the mob, but assumed the
offensive. Here and there they were seen crossing the street to puff
obnoxiously in the faces of people. Numerous subalterns were abroad,
lively for strife, and bright with the signal of their readiness. An icy
wind blew down from the Alps, whitening the housetops and the ways, but
every street, torso, and piazza was dense with loungers, as on a
summer evening; the clamour of a skirmish anywhere attracted streams of
disciplined rioters on all sides; it was the holiday of rascals.

Our traveller had ordered his vetturino to drive slowly to his hotel,
that he might take the features of this novel s