Shortly after the noon hour the next day, which was Sunday, we started for Florence, the day being a cold and cheerless one, arriving there at 8:30 and finding quarters at the Hotel de Europe, not a stone's throw from the right bank of the Arno. It was too chilly for any gas-light trips that evening, and we retired early, but the next morning after an early breakfast we started in to make the most of the little time that we had at our disposal, and before the time set for play that afternoon we had taken flying peeps at the beautiful Cathedral of St. Maria, the home and studio of Michael Angelo, the palace of the Medicis and the Pitti and Uffizi galleries, both of which are rich in paintings, the works of the great masters.
We played that afternoon upon the Cascine or racecourse of Florence, in the midst of beautiful surroundings and in the presence of a crowd that was small but select, royalty having several representatives on the grounds. The game was a hotly-contested one throughout, Healy and Carroll and Baldwin and myself being the batteries, and was finally won by the All-Americas, the score standing at 7 to 4 in their favor.
It was five o'clock and raining when we left Florence the next morning. We had landed in Italy in a rain storm and we left the land of sunshine and soft skies under the same unpleasant conditions.
[CHAPTER XXIX. OUR VISIT TO LA BELLE FRANCE.]
It was some days after we left the beautiful city of Florence, with its wealth of statuary and paintings, before we again donned our uniforms, the lack of grounds upon which we could play being the reason for our enforced idleness. The day we left Florence we crossed over the border and that night found us on French soil, and in the land of the "parlevooers." The ride from Florence to Nice, which latter city was our objective point, was one long dream of delight, the road running for nearly the entire distance along the shores of the Mediterranean and along the edge of high cliffs, at whose rocky bases waves were breaking into spray that, catching the gleam of the sunlight, reflected all the colors of the rainbow. Now and then the train plunged into the darkness of a tunnel, where all was blackness, but as it emerged again the sunlight became all the brighter by comparison. As we passed through Pisa, a few hours out from Florence, we caught excellent view of the famous leaning tower, with the appearance of which every schoolboy has been made familiar by the pictures in his geography. At Genoa the train stopped for luncheon and there Pfeffer's appetite proved to be too much for him, and as he couldn't speak Italian he lingered so long at the table as to get left, coming on in the next train a few hours afterwards, and getting guyed unmercifully regarding his tremendous capacity for storing away food.
In the course of the afternoon we passed through the the city of Diana Maria, that four years before had been destroyed by an earthquake, in which some four hundred people were killed or severely injured. It was a desolate enough looking place as viewed from the car windows, the broken walls that seemed ready to tumble at the slightest touch, and the bare rafters all bearing witness to the terrible shaking up that the city had received. Leaving Diana Maria we passed through some beautiful mountain scenery, the little villages that clustered in the valleys looking from our point of view like a collection of birdhouses. It was nearly dark when we reached San Remo, where the late Emperor of Germany had lain during his last illness, and quite so when we left it and entered the station of Vingt Mille, on the French border, and some twenty miles from our destination.
Here Crane's monkey was the cause of our getting into trouble, a couple of Italians, who had taken offense at the free-and-easy ways of Fogarty, Crane and Carroll, who occupied the same apartment with them, informing the guard that the New-Yorker had the little animal in his pocket, the fare for which was immediately demanded and refused.
At Vingt Mille, after the customs authorities had examined our baggage, and we were about to take the train again, we were stopped and informed that we would not be allowed to proceed until the monkey's fare had been paid. It was some time before we ascertained the real cause of our detention, none of us being able to speak Italian, and when we finally learned the train had gone on without us. Seventeen francs were paid for the monk's ride in Crane's pocket, and we thought the episode settled, but later on the official came back, stating that a mistake had been made and that the monk's fare was nine francs more, but this Crane positively refused to pay until we were again surrounded by a cordon of soldiers, when he "anted up," but most unwillingly. It was an imposition, doubtless, but they had the might on their side and that settled the business. After that the gentleman (?) who had acted as interpreter, doubtless thinking that Americans were "soft marks," put in a claim of twenty francs for services, but this he did not get, though he came very close to receiving the toe of a boot in its stead.
After once more getting started we sped past the gambling palaces of Monte Carlo and Monaco, that loomed up close behind us in the darkness, and, arriving at Nice, finally secured quarters in the Interlachen Hotel, the city being crowded with strangers who had come from all parts of the world to view the "Battle of Flowers," that was to take place on the morrow. It rained all that night and all the next day, and as a result the carnival had to be postponed, and the floral decorations presented a somewhat woe-begone and bedraggled appearance. It had been our intention to play a game here, but to our astonishment and the disappointment of several hundred Americans then in Nice, the project had to be abandoned for the reason that there was not a ground or anything that even remotely resembled one, within the city limits.
The rain that had caused the postponement of the carnival did not prevent us from leaving the hotel, however, and the entire party put in the day visiting the great gambling halls of Monte Carlo, which are today as famous on this side of the water as they are on the continent, and where the passion for gambling has ruined more people of both sexes than all of the other gambling hells of the world combined. A more beautiful spot than Monte Carlo it would be hard to imagine, the interior of the great gambling hall being handsomer than that of any theater or opera house that we had seen, and furnished in the most gorgeous manner. The work of the landscape gardener can here be seen at its best, no expense having been spared to make the grounds that surrounded the building devoted to games of chance the handsomest in the world. In its great halls one sees every sort and variety of people. Lords and Ladies, Princes and Princesses, Dukes and Duchesses, gamblers and courtesans, all find place at the table where the monotonous voices of the croupiers and the clinking of the little ivory ball are about the only sounds that break the silence.