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Page 38
It was not until the evening, however, when we were talking to some
Milwaukee people, that we remembered, with the assistance of Baedeker
and the Milwaukee people, a number of facts about Columbus that deprived
Alessandro's information of its commercial value, while leaving his
ingenuity, so to speak, at par. The Senator was so much annoyed, as he
had made a special note of the state of preservation in which he had
found the dwelling of our discoverer, that he had recourse to the most
unscrupulous means of relieving us of Alessandro--who was to present
himself next morning at eleven. He wrote an impulsive letter to "A.
Bebbini, Esq.," which ran:
"SIR: I find that we are too credulous a family to travel in
safety with a courier. When you arrive at the hotel
to-morrow, therefore, you will discover that we have fled
by an earlier train. We take it from no personal objection
to your society, but from a rooted and unconquerable
objection to brass facts. I enclose your month's salary and
a warning that any attempt to follow me will be fruitless
and expensive."
"Yours truly,"
"J.P. WICK."
The Senator assured me afterwards that this was absolutely
necessary--that A. Bebbini, if we introduced him in any quantity, would
ruin the sale of our work, and if he accompanied us it would be
impossible to keep him out. He said we ought to apologize for having
even mentioned him in a book of travels which we hope to see taken
seriously. And we do.
CHAPTER IX.
Momma wishes me to state that the word Italy, in any language, will for
ever be associated in her mind with the journey from Genoa to Pisa. We
had our own lunch basket, so no baneful anticipation of cutlets fried in
olive oil marred the perfect satisfaction with which we looked out of
the windows. One window, almost the whole way, opened on a low
embankment which seemed a garden wall. Olives and lemon trees grew
beyond it and dropped over, and it was always dipping in the sunlight to
show us the roses and the shady walks of the villas inside, white and
remote; now and then we saw the pillared end of a verandah or a plaster
Neptune ruling a restricted fountain area. Out of the other window
stretched the blue Gulf of Genoa all becalmed and smiling, with freakish
little points and headlines, and here and there the white blossom of a
sail. The Senator counted eighty tunnels--he wants that fact mentioned
too--some of them so short that it was like shutting one's eyes for an
instant on the olives and the sea. Nevertheless it was an idyllic
journey, and at four o'clock in the afternoon we saw the Leaning Tower
from afar, describing the precise angle that it does in the illustrated
geographies. Momma was charmed to recognise it, she blew it a kiss of
adulation and acclaim, while we yet wound about among the environs, and
hailed it "Pisa!" It was as if she bowed to a celebrity, with the homage
due.
What the Senator called our attention to as we drove to the hotel was
the conspicuous part in municipal politics played by that little old
brown river Arno. In most places the riparian feature of the landscape
is not insisted on--you have usually to go to the suburbs to find it,
but in Pisa it is a sort of main street, with the town sitting
comfortably and equally on each side of it looking on. Momma and I both
liked the idea of a river in town scenery, and thought it might be
copied with advantage in America, it afforded such a good excuse for
bridges. Pisa's three arched stone ones made a reason for settling there
in themselves in our opinion. The Senator, however, was against it on
conservancy grounds, and asked us what we thought of the population of
Pisa. And we had to admit that for the size of the houses there weren't
very many people about. The Lungarno was almost empty except for
desolate cabmen, and they were just as eager and hospitable to us and
our trunks as they had been in Genoa.
In the Piazza del Duomo we expected the Cathedral, the Leaning Tower,
the Baptistry, and the Campo Santo. We did not expect Mrs. Portheris; at
least, neither of my parents did--I knew enough about Dicky Dod not to
be surprised at any combination he might effect. There they all were in
the middle of the square bit of meadow, apparently waiting for us, but
really, I have no doubt, getting an impression of the architecture as a
whole. I could tell from Mrs. Portheris's attitude that she had
acknowledged herself to be gratified. Strange to relate, her
gratification did not disappear when she saw that these medi�val
circumstances would inconsistently compel her to recognise very modern
American connections. She approached us quite blandly, and I saw at once
that Dicky Dod had been telling her that poppa's chances for the
Presidency were considered certain, that the Spanish Infanta had stayed
with us while she was in Chicago at the Exhibition, and that we fed her
from gold plate. It was all in Mrs. Portheris's manner.
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