The Dodge Club Part 13

To hire a carriage in Naples for any length of time is by no means an easy thing. It is necessary to hold long commune with the proprietor, to exert all the wiles of masterly diplomacy to circ.u.mvent cunning by cunning, to exert patience, skill, and eloquence. After a decision has been reached, there is but one way in which you can hold your vetturino to his bargain, and that is to bind him to it by securing his name to a contract. Every vetturino has a printed form all ready. If he can't write his name, he does something equally binding and far simpler. He dips his thumb in the ink-bottle and stamps it on the paper. If that is not his signature, what else is it?

"Thus," said one, "Signor Adam signed the marriage-contract with Signora Eva."

After incredible difficulties a contract had been drawn up and signed by the h.o.r.n.y thumb of a certain big vetturino, who went by the name of "II Piccolo." It was to the effect that, for a certain specified sum, Il Piccolo should take the party to Paestum and back with a detour to Sorrento.

It was a most delightful morning. All were in the best of spirits.

So they started. On for miles through interminable streets of houses that bordered the circular sh.o.r.e, through crowds of sheep, droves of cattle, dense ma.s.ses of human beings, through which innumerable caleches darted like meteors amid the stars of heaven. Here came the oxen of Southern Italy, stately, solemn, long-horned, cream-colored; there marched great droves of Sorrento hogs--the hog of hogs--a strange but not ill-favored animal, thick in hide, leaden in color, hairless as a hippopotamus. The flesh of the Sorrento hog bears the same relation to common pork that "Lubin's Extrait" bears to the coa.r.s.e scent of a country grocery. A pork-chop from the Sorrento animal comes to the palate with the force of a new revelation; it is the highest possibility of pork--the apotheosis of the pig! Long lines of macaroni-cooks doing an enormous business; armies of dealers in anisette; crowds of water-carriers; throngs of fishermen, carrying nets and singing merry songs--"Ecco mi!" "Ecco la!"--possible Ma.s.saniellos every man of them, I a.s.sure you, Sir. And--enveloping all, mingling with all, jostling all, busy with the busiest, idle with the idlest, noisy with the noisest, jolly with the jolliest, the fat, oily, swarthy, rosy--(etc., for further epithets see preceding pages)--_Lazaroni_!

Every moment produces new effects in the ever-s.h.i.+fting scenes of Naples. Here is the reverse of monotony; if any thing becomes wearisome, it is the variety. Here is the monotony of incessant change. The whole city, with all its vast suburbs, lives on the streets.

The Senator wiped his fevered brow. He thought that for crowds, noise, tumult, dash, hurry-skurry, gayety, life, laughter, joyance, and all that incites to mirth, and all that stirs the soul, even New York couldn't hold a candle to Naples.

Rabelais ought to have been a Neapolitan.

Then, as the city gradually faded into the country, the winding road opened up before them with avenues of majestic trees--overhanging, arching midway--forming long aisles of shade. Myrtles, that grew up into trees, scented the air. Interminable groves of figs and oranges spread away up the hill, intermingled with the darker foliage of the olive or cypress.

The mountains come lovingly down to bathe their feet in the sea. The road winds among them. There is a deep valley around which rise lofty hills topped with white villages or ancient towers, or dotted with villas which peep forth from amid dense groves. As far as the eye can reach the vineyards spread away. Not as in France or Germany, miserable sandy fields with naked poles or stunted bushes; but vast extents of trees, among which the vines leap in wild luxuriance, hanging in long festoons from branch to branch, or intertwining with the foliage.

"I don't know how it is," said the Senator, "but I'm cussed if I feel as if this here country was ground into the dust. If it is, it is no bad thing to go through the mill. I don't much wonder that these _I_talians don't emigrate. If I owned a farm in this neighborhood I'd stand a good deal of squeezin' before I'd sell out and go anywheres else."

At evening they reached Salerno, a watering-place the sea-coast, and Naples in miniature.

There is no town in Italy without its opera-house or theatre, and among the most vivid and most precious of scenic delights the pantomime commends itself to the Italian bosom. Of course there was a pantomime at Salerno. It was a mite of a house; on a rough calculation thirty feet by twenty; a double tier of boxes; a parquette about twelve feet square; and a stage of about two-thirds that size.

Yet behold what the ingenuity of man can accomplis.h.!.+ On that stage there were performed all the usual exhibitions of human pa.s.sion, and they even went into the production of great scenic displays, among which a great storm in the forest was most prominent.

Polichinello was in his glory! On this occasion the joke of the evening was an English traveller. The ideal Englishman on the Continent is a never-failing source of merriment. The presence of five Americans gave additional piquancy to the show. The corpulent, double-chinned, red-nosed Englishman, with knee-breeches, shoe-buckles, and absurd coat, stamped, swore, frowned, doubled up his fists, knocked down waiters, scattered gold right and left, was arrested, was tried, was fined; but came forth unterrified from every persecution, to rave, to storm, to fight, to lavish money as before.

How vivid were the flashes of lightning produced by touching off some cotton-wool soaked in alcohol! How terrific the peals of thunder produced by the vibrations of a piece of sheet-iron! Whatever was deficient in mechanical apparatus was readily supplied by the powerful imagination of the Italians, who, though they had often seen all this before, were not at all weary of looking at it, but enjoyed the thousandth repet.i.tion as much as the first.

Those merry Italians!

There is an old, old game played by every vetturino.

When our travellers had returned to the hotel, and were enjoying themselves in general conversation, the vetturino bowed himself in.

He was a good deal exercised in his mind. With a great preamble he came to his point. As they intended to start early in the morning, he supposed they would not object to settle their little bill now.

"_What_!" shouted b.u.t.tons, jumping up. "What bill? Settle a bill?

_We_ settle a bill? Are you mad?"

"Your excellencies intend to settle the bill, of course," said the vetturino, with much phlegm.

"Our excellencies never dreamed of any such thing."

"Not pay? Ha! ha! You jest, Signor."

"Do you see this?" said b.u.t.tons, solemnly producing the contract.

"Well?" responded Il Piccolo.

"What is this?"

"Our contract."

"Do you know what it is that you have engaged to do?"

"To take you to Paestum."

"Yes; to Paestum and back, with a detour to Sorrento. Moreover, you engage to supply us with three meals a day and lodgings, to all of which we engage to pay a certain sum. What, then," cried b.u.t.tons, elevating his voice, "in the name of all the blessed saints and apostles, do you mean by coming to us about hotel bills?"

"Signor," said the vetturino, meekly, "when I made that contract I fear I was too sanguine."

"Too sanguine!"

"And I have changed my mind since."

"Indeed?"

"I find that I am a poor man."

"Did you just find that out?"

"And that if I carry out this it will ruin me."

"Well?"

"So you'll have to pay for the hotel expenses yourselves," said Il Piccolo, with desperation.

"I will forgive this insufferable insolence," said b.u.t.tons, Majestically, "on condition that it never occurs again. Do you see that?" he cried, in louder tones.

And he unfolded the contract, which he had been holding in his hand, and sternly pointed to the big blotch of ink that was supposed to be II Piccolo's signature.

"_Do you see that_!" he cried, in a voice of thunder.

The Italian did not speak.

"And _that_?" he cried, pointing to the signature of the witness.

The Italian opened his month to speak, but was evidently nonplused.

"You are in my power!" said b.u.t.tons, in a fine melodramatic tone, and with a vivacity of gesture that was not without its effect on the Italian. He folded the contract, replaced it in his breast-pocket, and slapped it with fearful emphasis. Every slap seemed to go to the heart of Il Piccolo.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Do You See That?]

"If you dare to try to back out of this agreement I'll have you up before the police. I'll enforce the awful penalty that punishes the non-performance of a solemn engagement. I'll have you arrested by the Royal Guards in the name of His Majesty the King, and cause you to be incarcerated in the lowest dungeons of St. Elmo. Besides, I won't pay you for the ride thus far."