I glared at him one moment, then turned and sped on—up the street of the Giant, passing the north flank of the palace, where sentries stood on guard, and so into an open piazza, the Largho S. Ferdinando, into which the palace itself stuck a shoulder, and where were churches and the flaring portico of a theatre, and other buildings strangely fine in their contiguity to the slums we had left.
And here, amidst the wild drift and gabble of a throng less foul but as aimless, we plunged and were absorbed, and stood together again to breathe.
All Naples, it seemed, was bent on shouting down its brother.
“What next?” bawled Gogo in my ear.
A handsome inn, the “Orient,” stood comparatively quiet and isolated in an odd corner of the Place.
“Rooms—there!” I answered.
“Its exclusiveness makes it prominent,” boomed Gogo, with as much dryness as he could put into a roar.
I beckoned him on imperiously.
On n’a jamais bon marché de mauvaise marchandise.
In a little we were installed in comfortable rooms.