“No, Antonio; I don’t care about cathedrals, but you can come with me to the English Consul’s if you like, and show me the way.”
“I like very moche, Sarr,” said Antonio, with a grin. “Ze English gentlemans please me. Zey is astonished at everyting. Ze pictures—O! bellissimi! and ze palazzi, and ze churches. It is noting but O! and O! as long as zey are walking about. But, Sarr,” said Antonio, coming closer, “Livorno is not moche. It is a city of trade. Com to Firenze, Sarr, if you would see beautiful pictures and beautiful houses. Ah! that is something to see. Or to Venezia—better still. I am of Venezia, Sarr. Ze gentleman will not say to Signor Paolo that I tell him so, but Livorno—pouff!” Antonio blew it away in a puff of disdain. “Firenze and Venezia, there is where you will see pictures—everyware—of Raphael and Michael Angelo, and Tiziano, and——”
“I don’t care much about pictures,” said Harry, calmly. “I like the shipping better. You can take me to the docks if you like. I don’t want you to tell me about them. I like to see things I know about myself. But I tell you what, Antonio, you may teach me the names in Italian, if you like; that will always be making a little progress,” Harry said, suddenly bethinking himself of Paolo’s suggestion.
Antonio’s face had lengthened by several inches. An English gentleman who did not want to see pictures was a personage of whom he had no understanding. He began to think that Harry was not a genuine Englishman after all.
“Ze signor is perhaps Tedesco—no? Or Americain—no? I have known many English,” said Antonio, gravely, “but zey all run after ze pictures. Ze gentleman is what you call an original. Benissimo! that makes noting to me. Ze sheeps in ze harbour are very fine sheeps. You will not see no bettare—no, not in England. Ze signor wishes—eh?—perhaps to make observations, to let ze Government—ze ministers know, Italy is now a great country, and ze others are jealous. You fear we will take ze trade all away?”
“Not so bad as that, Antonio,” said Harry, with a great laugh. “Where I have come from I wish I could show you the docks; they are about ten times as big as these.”
Antonio grinned from ear to ear. He did not believe a word of what Harry said. “If it pleases to ze gentleman,” he said, laughing too. He was perfectly tolerant of the joke, and glad to see his protegé cheerful. Then Harry jumped up from the table, poorly sustained for the business he had in hand by his light meal, but somewhat anxious to get through the ordeal he had proposed to himself. Antonio, however, who appeared presently in the well-worn and assiduously brushed costume of a laquais de place, could not quite let him off the inevitable sightseeing. He led him to the Duomo and into the great Square with a pretence that this was on the way to the Consul’s office, and made him look at again, whether he would or not, the same public buildings which he had gazed at dreamily as he wandered about the streets the day before, and looked at languidly in the moonlight under Paolo’s active guidance. He had been but twenty-four hours in Leghorn, and already he had associations with the street-corners, which probably he would never forget. Already this new world was acquiring known features of acquaintanceship; his life beginning to put forth threads like a spider’s web, and twist and twine, the new with the old. It startled Harry to feel that he was no longer a stranger here, where he had landed so forlorn. After the round which Antonio beguiled him into making, it was about eleven o’clock before they reached the door over which the well-known British symbol was put up. The outer office was full of people and business, sea-captains and merchants’ clerks, and even a few examples of the kind of traveller who is most common in Italy, he who travels for pleasure and not for business. Harry had to wait among the rest who were seeking an audience of the Vice-Consul. Here Antonio left him, and he could not see anything like the olive-countenance and brilliant costume of Paolo; but it was an English group among which he stood. The clerks even spoke English, if one or two of them displayed the tongue-tied hesitation which is common to all classes when they speak a language imperfectly understood. One of the tourists did his best to draw Harry into conversation, lamenting the cruel fate which had detained him in such a place. He was just starting for Pisa, this pilgrim said, where there was really something to see. “One might as well be in Liverpool as here,” he said. Harry did not make any reply. This was just the reason why he himself approved of Leghorn more than of any other place he had seen. When it came to his turn at last, almost all the other appellants and petitioners had been seen and dismissed. They all wanted something; and Harry’s new acquaintance had talked and worried him so much with his dislike to a place where there was so little to see, that he had almost forgot the manner in which he had arranged with himself to open his own story; when at length everybody else was despatched, and he had to go forward to his audience. His heart beat a little faster as he went in. The Vice-Consul was a man of a portly presence, something like an English merchant of the higher class, with grizzled hair, and an aspect of great respectability and authority. He was fully conscious of his dignity as the representative of the British Government, and of Her Majesty herself, amid an alien and inferior race. He did not think much of Italy or the Italian people, and he felt it was his mission in life to keep them down. He was seated in great state upon a large chair, which swung round with him when he moved. His table, his papers, the manner in which he appeared over them, with the air of a judge on the bench, was very imposing to a stranger, especially when that stranger was in difficulty and came to ask help. He made Harry a very formal bow, and pointed to a seat near, which had something of the air of a seat for the prisoner at the bar.
“What can I do for you?” he said, with a dignified inclination of his head; after the first glance his look softened. He was used to see a great many people, and it was a compliment to Harry’s appearance that it interested the Vice-Consul. He almost smiled upon him, with a benignity in which he did not very often indulge.
Then it was that Harry’s real difficulties began; but how thankful he was that it was a true story he was telling, and not a fictitious account of himself!
“I came to tell you, Sir,” he said, “of something that occurred last night—a scrape—that is to say a row I got into. I suppose I must call it a row.”