The twin brothers, Franco and Baldo del Ponte—who that has once met them can ever forget them? To begin with, they are giants—six-feet-four, and stalwart in proportion. Then they are handsome giants, with good, strong, regular features, close-cropped brown hair that tends to curl, and hearty open-air complexions. Then they are jolly, pleasant-tempered, simple-minded and clean-minded giants. Then they are indefatigable giants—indefatigable in the pursuit of open-air amusements: now in their sailing-boats, now in their motor-cars, or on horse-back, or driving their four-in-hands. And finally, being Italians, they are Anglophile giants;—like so many of the Italian aristocracy, they are more English than the English. They are rigorously English in their dress, for instance; they have all their clothes from London, and these invariably of the latest mode. They give English names to their sailing-boats—the Mermaid, the Seagull. They employ none but Englishmen in their stables, which are of English design, with English fittings. They have English dogs,—fox-terriers, bull-terriers, collies,—also with English names, Toby, Jack, Spark, Snap, and so forth. They speak English with only the remotest trace of foreignness—were they not educated at Eton, and at Trinity College, Cambridge? And they would fain Anglicise, not merely the uniform of the Italian police, but the Italian constitution. "What Italy needs," they will assure you, looking wondrous wise, "is a House of Peers." Their Italian friends laugh at them a good deal; but I suspect that under the laughter there is a certain admiration, if not even (for, as Italian fortunes go, theirs is an immense one) a certain envy.
Is all this apropos of boots, you wonder? No, for behold—
After breakfast, on the following morning, Adrian was alone, enjoying a meditative digestion, in the sitting-room at the Hôtel de Rome, when he saw come bowling along the Riva, turn rattling into the Piazza, and draw up at the inn door, a very English-looking dog-cart, driven by a huge young man in tweeds, with an apparent replica of himself beside him, and an English-looking groom behind. The two huge young men descended; he who had driven said something inaudible to the groom; and the groom, touching his hat, answered: "Yes, my lord."
"So," thought Adrian, "we are not the only Britons in this island. I wonder who my lord is."
And then, nothing if not consequent, he began to sing, softly to himself—
"Lord of thy presence, and no land besi-i-ide . . ."
And he was still softly carolling that refrain, when the door of the sitting-room was opened.
"Marchese del Ponte, Marchese Baldo del Ponte," announced the waiter, with sympathetic exhilaration, flourishing his inseparable napkin.
The two huge young men entered. The room seemed all at once to contract, and become half its former size.
"Ah, Count," said one of them, advancing, and getting hold of Adrian's hand. "How do you do? I am the Marchese del Ponte; this is my brother, the Marchese Baldo. Welcome to Sampaolo. We are your connections, you know. Our ancestors have intermarried any time these thousand years."