I did not wait to answer her, but rushed down to the landlord. “Where does that Count Castrocaro live?” I asked.
“Nowhere in particular, I believe, sir; and for the present he has left Turin—started for Genoa by the diligence five minutes ago. He’s a Gran’ Galantuomo, sir,” added he, as I stood stupefied.
“I am aware of that,” said I, as I crept back to my room to finish my packing.
“Did you settle with the Count?” asked my wife at the door.
“Yes,” said I, with my head buried in my trunk.
“And he was perfectly satisfied?”
“Of course he was—he has every reason to be so.”
“I am glad of it,” said she, moving away—“he had a deal of trouble with those themes of mine. No one knows what they cost him.” I could have told what they cost me; but I never did, till the present moment.
I need not say with what an appetite I dined on that day, nor with what abject humility I behaved to my wife, nor how I skulked down in the evening to the landlord to apologise for not being able to pay the bill before I left, an unexpected demand having left me short of cash. All these, seventeen years ago as they are, have not yet lost their bitterness, nor have I yet arrived at the time when I can think with composure of this friend of Gioberti.
Admiral Dalrymple tells us, amongst his experiences as a farmer, that he gave twenty pounds for a dung-hill, “and he’d give ten more to any one who’d tell him what to do with it.” I strongly suspect this is pretty much the case with the Italians as regards their fleet. There it is—at least, there is the beginning of it; and when it shall be complete, where is it to go? what is it to protect? whom to attack?