"And this, Messieurs, is the jaw-bone of a cave-bear - the competitor,
one might say, in the matter of lodging-houses, with the gentleman whose
anatomy we have just inspected. Here are bones of hippopotamus, and
rhinoceros, which he hunted with the weapons you saw. And the object on
which your arm is reposing, Madame, is the tooth of an elephant. Our
ancestor must have been pretty costaud to kill an elephant with a
stone."
"Elephants?" she queried. "Did elephants scramble about these precipices
and ravines? I should like to have seen that."
"Pardon me, Madame. He probably killed them down there," and his arm
swept over the blue Mediterranean, lying at our feet. "Do you mean to
say that elephants paddled across from Algiers in order to be
assassinated by your old skeleton? I should like to have seen that."
"Pardon me, Madame. The Mediterranean did not exist in those days."
The suggestion that this boundless sea should ever have been dry land,
and in the time of her own ancestors, was too much for the young lady.
She smiled politely, and soon I heard her whispering to her husband:
"I had him there, eh? Quel farceur!"
"Yes. You caught him nicely, I must say. But one must not be too hard on
these poor devils. They have got to earn their bread somehow."
This will never do.
Italiam petimus....
Levanto
I have loafed into Levanto, on the recommendation of an Irish friend
who, it would seem, had reasons of his own for sending me there.
"Try Levanto," he said. "A little place below Genoa. Nice, kindly
people. And sunshine all the time. Hotel Nazionale. Yes, yes! The food
is all right. Quite all right. Now please do not let us start that
subject - - "
We started it none the less, and at the end of the discussion he added:
"You must go and see Mitchell there. I often stayed with him. Such a
good fellow! And very popular in the place. He built an aqueduct for the
peasants - that kind of man. Mind you look him up. He will be bitterly
disappointed if you don't call. So make a note of it, won't you? By the
way, he's dead. Died last year. I quite forgot."
"Dead, is he? What a pity."
"Yes; and what a nuisance. I promised to send him down some things by
the next man I came across. You would have been that man. I know you do
not carry much luggage, but you could have taken one or two trifles at
least. He wanted a respectable English telescope, I remember, to see the
stars with - a bit of an astronomer, you know. Chutney, too - devilish
fond of chutney, the old boy was; quite a gastro-maniac.
