When My Lady had called Pepino to throw a bucket of water over the designs and freshen them up, their brilliance was startling. Nor were they true frescoes, as we now know the art in England, for I rubbed my finger against them whilst they were wet, but could get no stain.
“You will soon be able to see them better,” said the Queen—who went round the excavations with the eye of a purchaser, who had had a residue thrown in—“for I am going to have those pictures of the ancients sawn off the walls and carried to my palace.”
“They were better here,” said the Admiral boldly, when My Lady interpreted.
She repeated his remark to Her Majesty, who said,—
“Tut! tut! A few storms such as we have had to-day, and a summer or two of the sandy breath of the sirocco, and where would they be?”
Then occurred a lively little dialogue, interpreted, with improvements, no doubt, by her Ladyship.
“If it were in England I make bold to think that we should roof them in with glass.”
“You English are made of money.”
“A nation need not be made of money to have this whole city roofed in with glass, as it is given back to the daylight; and these would be the finest museums in the world. The Romans were the chief race worth considering in the ancient world, and here we have the actual houses in which they lived, with the ashes still in the braziers and the bread in the bins.”
“I think we must give you Pompeji as your dowry when the King has that patent of nobility drawn out which he wishes to have the honour of conferring upon you; and then you can put it all under one hall roof, Admiral.”