In Naples the foreigners accuse Italy of running with the hare and the hounds. They asked what is her object in keeping on friendly terms with the bitterest enemy of the Allies. Is there an understanding that after the war she and Germany will together carve slices off of Austria? Whatever her ulterior object may be, her present war spirit does not impress the visitor. It is not the spirit of France and England. One man said to me: “Why can’t you keep the Italian-Americans in America? Over there they earn money, and send millions of it to Italy. When they come here to fight, not only that money stops, but we have to feed and pay them.”
It did not sound grateful. Nor as though Italy were seriously at war. You do not find France and England, or Germany, grudging the man who returns to fight for his country his rations and pay. And Italy pays her soldiers five cents a day. Many of the reservists and volunteers from America who answered the call to arms are bitterly disappointed. It was their hope to be led at once to the firing-line. Instead, after six months, they are still in camp. The families some brought with them are in great need. They are not used to living on five cents a day. An Italian told me the heaviest drain upon the war-relief funds came from the families of these Italian-Americans, stranded in their own country. He also told me his chief duty was to meet them on their arrival.
“But haven’t they money when they arrive from America?” I asked.
“That’s it,” he said naïvely. “I’m at the wharf to keep their countrymen from robbing them of it.”
At present in Europe you cannot take gold out of any country that is at war. As a result, gold is less valuable than paper, and when I exchanged my double-eagles for paper I lost.
On the advice of the wisest young banker in France I changed, again at a loss, the French paper into Bank of England notes. But when I arrived in Salonika I found that with the Greeks English bank-notes were about as popular as English troops, and that had I changed my American gold into American notes, as was my plan, I would have been passing rich. That is what comes of associating with bankers.
At the Italian frontier, a French gentleman had come to the door of the compartment, raised his hat to the inmates, and asked if we had any gold. Forewarned, we had not; and, taking our word for it, he again raised his hat and disappeared. But, on leaving Naples, it was not like that. In these piping times of war your baggage is examined when you depart as well as when you arrive. You get it coming and going. But the Greek steamer was to weigh anchor at noon, and at noon all the port officials were at déjeuner; so, sooner than wait a week for another boat, the passengers went on board and carried their bags with them. It was unpardonable. It was an affront the port officials could not brook. They had been disregarded. Their dignity had been flouted. What was worse, they had not been tipped. Into the dining-saloon of the Greek steamer, where we were at luncheon, they burst like Barbary pirates. They shrieked, they yelled. Nobody knew who they were, or what they wanted. Nor did they enlighten us. They only beat upon the tables, clanked their swords, and spoiled our lunch. Why we were abused, or of what we were accused, we could not determine. We vaguely recognized our names, and stood up, and, while they continued to beat upon the tables, a Greek steward explained they wanted our gold. I showed them my bank-notes, and was allowed to return to my garlic and veal. But the English cigarette king, who each week sends some millions of cigarettes to the Tommies in the trenches, proposed to make a test case of it.
“I have on me,” he whispered, “four English sovereigns. I am not taking them out of Italy, because until they crossed the border in my pocket, they were not in Italy, and as I am now leaving Italy, one might say they have never been in Italy. It’s as though they were in bond. I am a British subject, and this is not Italian, but British, gold. I shall refuse to surrender my four sovereigns. I will make it a test case.”
The untipped port officials were still jangling their swords, so I advised the cigarette king to turn in his gold. Even a Greek steamer is better than an Italian jail.
“I will make of it a test case,” he repeated.