“Then you don't blame your little boy, do you?” says I, and dad looked at me as he was hanging his wet shirt on a chair. “Course not; you were asleep in the cabin. But say, if I ever hear that you did tip that gondola, it will go hard with you,” but I just looked innocent, and dad went on drying his shirt by a charcoal brazier and never suspected me. But I am getting the worst of it, for dad and his clothes smell so much like a clam bake that it makes me sick.
Well, old friend, you ought to close up your grocery and come over here and go to Vesuvius and Pompeii with us, where we can dry our clothes by the volcano, and dig in the city that was buried in hot ashes 2,000 years ago. They say you can dig up mummies there that are dead ringers for you, old man.
O, come on, and have fun with us.
Your friend,
Hennery.
CHAPTER XVI.
The Bad Boy Writes from Naples—Dad Sees Vesuvius and Calls
the Servants to Put Out the Fire—They Have Trouble with a
“Dago” in Pompeii.
Naples, Italy.—Dear Old Partner in Crime: Well, sir, we have struck a place that reminds us of home, and your old grocery store. The day we got here dad and I took a walk into the poorer districts, where they throw all the slops and refuse in the streets, and where nobody ever seems to clean up anything and burn it. The odor was something that you cannot describe without a demonstration, and after we had turned pale and started to go away, dad said the smell reminded him of something at home, and finally he remembered your old grocery in the sauerkraut season, early in the morning, before you had aired out the place. Your ears must have burned when we were talking about you.
If you want to get an idea of Naples, at its worst, go down into your cellar and round up all the codfish, onions, kraut, limburger cheese, kerosene, rotten potatoes, and everything that is dead, put it all in a bushel basket, and just before the Health officers come to pull your place, get down on your knees and put your head down in the basket, and let some one sit on your head all the forenoon, and you will have just such a half day as dad and I had in the poor quarter of Naples, and it will not cost you half as much as it did us, unless, after you have enjoyed yourself in your cellar with your head in the basket, you decide to have a run of sickness and hire a doctor who will charge you the price of a trip to Europe.