FullReads

“I want you, madam, for a moment here,” said I, with something of Othello, in the last act, in my voice and demeanour.

“I suppose I can take off my bonnet and shawl first, Mr O’Dowd,” said she, snappishly.

“No, madam; you may probably find that you’ll need them both at the end of our interview.”

“What do you mean, sir?” asked she, haughtily.

“This is no time for grand airs or mock dignity, madam,” said I, with the tone of the avenging angel. “Do you know these? are these in your hand? Deny it if you can.”

“Why should I deny it? Of course they’re mine.”

“And you wrote this, and this, and this?” cried I, almost in a scream, as I shook forth one after another of the letters.

“Don’t you know I did?” said she, as hotly; “and nothing beyond a venial mistake in one of them!”

“A what, woman? a what?”

“A mere slip of the pen, sir. You know very well how I used to sit up half the night at my exercises?”

“Exercises!”

“Well, themes, if you like better; the Count made me make clean copies of them, with all his corrections, and send them to him every day–here are the rough ones;” and she opened a drawer filled with a mass of papers all scrawled over and blotted. “And now, sir, once more, what do you mean?”

I did not wait to answer her, but rushed down to the landlord. “Where does that Count Castrocaro live?” I asked.

“Nowhere in particular, I believe, sir; and for the present he has left Turin–started for Genoa by the diligence five minutes ago. He’s a Gran’ Galantuomo, sir,” added he, as I stood stupefied.

“I am aware of that,” said I, as I crept back to my room to finish my packing.

“Did you settle with the Count?” asked my wife at the door.

“Yes,” said I, with my head buried in my trunk.

“And he was perfectly satisfied?”

“Of course he was–he has every reason to be so.”

“I am glad of it,” said she, moving away–“he had a deal of trouble with those themes of mine. No one knows what they cost him.” I could have told what they cost me; but I never did, till the present moment.

I need not say with what an appetite I dined on that day, nor with what abject humility I behaved to my wife, nor how I skulked down in the evening to the landlord to apologise for not being able to pay the bill before I left, an unexpected demand having left me short of cash. All these, seventeen years ago as they are, have not yet lost their bitterness, nor have I yet arrived at the time when I can think with composure of this friend of Gioberti.

Admiral Dalrymple tells us, amongst his experiences as a farmer, that he gave twenty pounds for a dung-hill, “and he’d give ten more to any one who’d tell him what to do with it.” I strongly suspect this is pretty much the case with the Italians as regards their fleet. There it is–at least, there is the beginning of it; and when it shall be complete, where is it to go? what is it to protect? whom to attack?

The very last thing Italians have in their minds is a war with England. If we have not done them any great or efficient service, we have always spoken civilly of them, and bade them a God-speed. But, besides a certain goodwill that they feel for us, they entertain–as a nation with a very extended and ill-protected coast-line ought–a considerable dread of a maritime power that could close every port they possess, and lay some very important towns in ashes.

Now, it is exactly by the possession of a fleet that, in any future war between England and France, these people may be obliged to ally themselves to France. The French will want them in the Mediterranean, and they cannot refuse when called on.