"No, I'm sure he would not like the gondolas," admitted Jean smiling faintly, "because Hannah and I tried him on the swan-boats in the Public Garden and he hated them; he just barked and snarled all the time, and wriggled about so in my arms that he nearly went overboard and carried me with him."
"That's just it! That is precisely the way he would feel on shipboard. Now my plan is this. We'll send him out to Pittsburgh for Uncle Tom to take care of until you get back. Then when you go out there in October your doggie will be nicely settled in his other home and waiting for you. In fact," confessed Uncle Bob a little sheepishly, "I wrote Uncle Tom and asked how he would feel about adding a puppy to his household. This is his answer:
"'European plan excellent. Send Beacon. Next best thing to Jean.'"
"Dear Uncle Tom! He is awfully good, isn't he?"
"Yes, he is. I fancy he will decide so, too, when he finds all his sofa cushions torn, and his shoes chewed up," chuckled Uncle Bob. "Let him take his turn at it."
Beacon provided for, the remainder of the European plan seemed simple enough. To be sure there was Hannah, who at first flatly refused to be separated from the golden dome of the State House or from the Boston "Evening Transcript." At last, however, after much persuasion she consented to suffer these deprivations for the common good, and brought herself to purchasing the necessary clothing for Jean and herself. To these she added French, German and Italian dictionaries because, as she explained: "We might get lost or parted from your Uncle Bob somehow, and you never can tell what will happen in those heathen countries where the poor people cannot speak English. How men and women can live in places where they talk those dreadful languages and use that queer money when they might come over here to Boston——"
"That's right, Hannah," agreed Uncle Bob, playfully urging her on.
"And all that strange weather! Why, I read only the other day that in Italy they just have summer all the year round. So foolish! They never get any snow at all—think of that! It is such a slack and lazy way to do always to be wearing one set of things and never getting out any winter flannels. I shouldn't know where I was if I didn't chalk off the seasons by my house cleaning, preserving, getting out the furs, and putting them away. I just know those Italians live without any system. How could they be expected to have any when it's summer all the time?"
She sniffed scornfully.
In fact Hannah sniffed a good many times before the great ship which was carrying them to Naples docked beneath the shadow of Vesuvius. The staterooms she termed little coops, and the berths nothing more nor less than shelves.