those necessary nuisances, European guides. Many a man has wished in his heart he could do without his guide, but, knowing he could not, has wished he could get some amusement out of him as a remuneration for the affliction of his society. We accomplished this latter matter, and if our experience can be made useful to others they are welcome to it.

Guides know about enough English to tangle everything up so that a man can make neither head nor tail of it. They know their story by heart-the history of every statue, painting, cathedral, or other wonder they show you. They know it and tell it as a parrot would and if you interrupt, and throw them off the track, they have to go back and begin over again. All their lives long they are employed in showing strange things to foreigners and listening to their bursts of admiration. It is human nature to take delight in exciting admiration. It is what prompts children to say "smart" things, and do absurd ones, and in other ways "show off" when company is present. It is what makes gossips turn out in rain and storm to go and be the first to tell a startling bit of news. Think, then, what a passion it becomes with a guide whose privilege it is every day to show to strangers wonders that throw them into perfect ecstasies of admiration! He gets so that he could not by any possibility live in a soberer atmosphere. After we discovered this, we never went into ecstasies any morewe never admired anything—we never showed any but impassible faces and stupid indifference in the presence of the sublimest wonders a guide had to display. We had found their weak point. We have made good use of it ever since. We have made some of those people savage at times, but we have never lost our own serenity.

The doctor asks the questions generally, because he can keep his countenance, and look more like an inspired idiot, and throw more imbecility into the tone of his voice than any man that lives. It comes natural to him.

The guides in Genoa are delighted to secure an American party, because Americans so much wonder, and deal so much in sentiment and emotion before any relic of Columbus. Our guide there fidgeted about as if he had swallowed a spring mattress. He was full of animation--full of impatience. He said—

"Come wis me, genteelmen!—come ! I show you ze letter writing by Christopher Colombo !-write it himself!-write it wis his own hand!-come!"

He took us to the municipal palace. After much impressive fumbling of keys and opening of locks, the stained and aged document was spread before us. The guide's eyes sparkled. He danced about us and tapped the parchment with his finger.

"What I tell you, genteelmen! Is it not so? See! handwriting Christopher Colombo !-write it himself!"

We looked indifferent-unconcerned. The doctor examined the document very deliberately, during a painful pause.—Then he said, without any show of interest

"Ah-Ferguson-what-what did you say was the name of the party who wrote this?"

"Christopher Colombo! ze great Christopher Colombo!" Another deliberate examination.

“Ah-did he write it himself, or—or how?"

"He write it himself!-Christopher Colombo !—he's own handwriting, write by himself!"

Then the doctor laid the document down and said

"Why, I have seen boys in America only fourteen years old that could write better than that."

"But zis is ze great Christo

"I don't care who it is! It's the worst writing I ever saw. Now you mustn't think you can impose on us because we are strangers. We are not fools, by a good deal. If you have got any specimens of penmanship of real merit, trot them out!--and if haven't drive on!"

you

We drove on. The guide was considerably shaken up, but he made one more venture. He had something which he thought

would overcome us. He said

'Ah, genteelmen, you come wis me! I show you beautiful, O, magnificent bust Christopher Colombo !-splendid, grand, magnificent!"

He brought us before the beautiful bust-for it was beautiful -and sprang back and struck an attitude.

"Ah, look, genteelmen !-beautiful, grand,-bust Christopher Colombo !-beautiful bust, beautiful pedestal !"

The doctor put up his eye-glass-procured for such occasions. “Ah—what did you say this gentleman's name was ?" "Christopher Colombo!-ze great Christopher Colombo!" Christopher Colombo-the great Christopher Colombo. Well, what did he do?"

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"Discover America!-discover America. Oh, ze devil!"

"Discover America. No-that statement will hardly wash. We are just from America ourselves. We heard nothing about it. Christopher Colombo-pleasant name-is-is he dead?"

"Oh, corpo di Baccho!-three hundred year!"

"What did he die of?"

"I do not know!-I cannot tell."

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of!"

Small-pox, think?”

"I do not know, genteelmen !—I do not know what he die

"Maybe

things."

maybe-I do not know-I think he die of some

"Parents living?"

"Im-posseeble!"

"Ah-which is the bust and which is the pedestal ?" "Santa Maria!-zis ze bust !--zis ze pedestal !"

"Ah, I see, I see-happy combination-very happy combination, indeed. Is-is this the first time this gentleman was ever on a bust ?"

That joke was lost on the foreigner-guides cannot master the subtleties of the American joke.

We have made it interesting to this Roman guide. Yesterday we spent three or four hours in the Vatican again, that wonderful world of curiosities. We came very near expressing interest sometimes—even admiration—it was very hard to keep from it. We succeeded though. Nobody else ever did in the Vatican museums. The guide was bewildered-non-plussed. He walked his legs off, nearly, hunting up extraordinary things, and exhausted all his ingenuity on us, but it was a failure; we never showed any interest in anything. He had reserved what he considered to be his greatest wonder till the last—a royal Egyptian mummy, the best preserved in the world, perhaps. He took us there. He felt so

sure this time that some of his old enthusiasm came back to

him

"See, genteelmen !-Mummy! Mummy!"

The eye-glass came up as calmly, as deliberately as ever. "Ah-Ferguson-what did I understand you to say the gentleman's name was?"

"Name?-he got no name !-Mummy!-'Gyptian mummy!" Born here?"

'Yes, yes.

"No! 'Gyptian mummy!"

"Ah, just so. Frenchman, I presume?'

"No!—not Frenchman, not Roman!-born in Egypta!"

"Born in Egypta. Never heard of Egypta before. Foreign locality, likely. Mummy-mummy. How calm he is-how selfpossessed. Is, ah-is he dead?"

“Oh, sacré bleu, been dead three thousan' year!"

The doctor turned on him savagely—

"Here, now, what do you mean by such conduct as this! Playing us for Chinamen because we are strangers and trying to learn! Trying to impose your vile secondhand carcasses on us! -thunder and lightning, I've a notion to-to-if you've got a nice fresh corpse, fetch him out!—or by George we'll brain you!"

We make it exceedingly interesting for this Frenchman. However, he paid us back, partly, without knowing it. He came to the hotel this morning to ask if we were up, and he endeavoured as well as he could to describe us, so that the landlord would know which persons he meant. He finished with the casual remark that we were lunatics. The observation was so innocent and so honest that it amounted to a very good thing for a guide to say.

There is one remark (already mentioned) which never yet has failed to disgust these guides. We use it always, when we can think of nothing else to say. After they have exhausted their enthusiasm pointing out to us and praising the beauties of some ancient bronze image or broken-legged statue, we look at it stupidly and in silence for five, ten, fifteen minutes—as long as we can hold out, in fact and then ask

"Is-is he dead?"

It is not what they are

That conquers the serenest of them. looking for especially a new guide. Our Roman Ferguson is the

most patient, unsuspecting, long-suffering subject we have had yet. We shall be sorry to part with him. We have enjoyed his society very much. We trust he has enjoyed ours, but we are harassed with doubts.

BLUCHER'S NOTE.

WE have had a bath in Milan, in a public bath-house. They were going to put all three of us in one bath-tub, but we objected. Each of us had an Italian farm on his back. We could have felt affluent if we had been officially surveyed and fenced in. We chose to have three bath-tubs, and large ones-tubs suited to the dignity of aristocrats who had real estate, and brought it with them. After we were stripped and had taken the first chilly dash, we discovered that haunting atrocity that has embittered our lives in so many cities and villages of Italy and France—there was no soap. I called. A woman answered, and I barely had time to throw myself against the door-she would have been in in another second. I said

Beware, woman! Go away from here-go away, now, or it will be the worse for you. I am an unprotected male, but I will preserve my honour at the peril of my life!"

These words must have frightened her, for she skurried away very fast.

Dan's voice rose on the ear—

"Oh, bring some soap, why don't you!"

The reply was Italian. Dan resumed—

Soap, you know-soap. That is what I want-soap. S-o-a-p, soap; s-o-p-e, soap; s-o-u-p, soap. Hurry up! I don't know how you Irish spell it, but I want it. Spell it to suit yourself, but fetch it. I'm freezing."

I heard the doctor say impressively

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Dan, how often have we told you that these foreigners cannot understand English? Why will you not depend upon us? Why will you not tell us what you want, and let us ask for it in the language of the country? It would save us a great deal of the