"You will start to-night for Florence, in the mail train. Get there as rapidly as possible, and find whether a Colonel Wilson is residing there, and what lady he is residing with. Learn all you can as to his position and means, and the terms on which he lives with that lady. Write to me, and wait there for further instructions. Mr. Williams will give you a cheque for £100; you can get circular notes for £50, and the rest cash. If you have anything to say, come in here at five o'clock; if not, good morning. By-the-by, say nothing in the office."
I need not say that hope made me believe my opportunity was come.
I hurried to Florence and discharged my mission; sent home a [{200}] careful letter, full of facts without comment or opinion, and in three weeks' time was summoned to return. I had done little or nothing that could help me, and in a disappointed state of mind I packed up and went to the railway station at St. Dominico. A little row with a peasant as to his demand for carrying my baggage caused me to lose the last train that night, and so the steamer at Leghorn. The station-master, seeing my vexation, endeavored to console me:
"There will be a special through train to Leghorn at nine o'clock, ordered for Count Spezzato: he is good-natured, and will possibly let you go in that."
It was worth the chance, and I hung about the station till I was tired, and then walked back toward the village. Passing a small wine-shop, I entered, and asked for wine in English. I don't know what whim possessed me when I did it, for they were unable to understand me without dumb motions. I at length got wine by these means, and sat down to while away the time over a railway volume.
I had been seated about half an hour, when a courier entered, accompanied by a railway guard. Two more different examples of the human race it would be difficult to describe.
The guard was a dark, savage-looking Italian, with 'rascal' and 'bully' written all over him; big, black, burly, with bloodshot eyes, and thick, heavy, sensual lips, the man was utterly repulsive.
The courier was a little, neatly-dressed man, of no age in particular; pale, blue-eyed, straight-lipped, his face was a compound of fox and rabbit that only a fool or a patriot would have trusted out of arm's length.
This ill-matched pair called for brandy, and the hostess set it before them. I then heard them ask who and what I was. She replied, I must be an Englishman, and did not understand the Italian for wine. She then left.
They evidently wanted to be alone, and my presence was decidedly disagreeable to them; and muttering that I was an Englishman, they proceeded to try my powers as a linguist. The courier commenced in Italian, with a remark on the weather. I immediately handed him the Newspaper. I didn't speak Italian, that was clear to them.