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Page 63
"We might have hit on a worse hotel," observed Mr. Mafferton. "Very
tolerable soup, to-night."
"I can't say I noticed the soup," said the Senator. "Fact is, soup to me
is just--soup. I presume there are different kinds, but beyond knowing
most of them from gruel I don't pretend to be a connoisseur."
"What nonsense, Alexander!" said momma sternly.
"Some are saltier than others, Augusta, I admit. But what I was going on
to say was that for clear monotony the dinner programmes ever since
Paris have beaten the record. Bramley told me how it would be. Consommy,
he said--that's soup--consommy, the whole enduring time. Fish _frit�_ or
fried, roast beef _� l'Italienne_ or mixed up with vegetables.
Beans--well, just beans, and if you don't like 'em you can leave 'em,
but that fourth course is never anything but beans. After that you get
a chicken cut up with lettuce, because if it was put on the table whole
some disappointed investigator might find out there was nothing inside
and file a complaint. Anything to support that unstuffed chicken? Nope.
Finishing up with a compote of canned fruit, mostly California pears
that want more cooking, and after that cheese, if you like cheese, and
coffee charged extra. Thanks to Bramley, I can't say I didn't know what
to expect, but that doesn't increase the variety any. Now in America--I
understand you have been to America, sir?"
"I have travelled in the States to some extent," responded Mr.
Mafferton.
"Seen Brooklyn Bridge and the Hudson, I presume. Had a look at Niagara
Falls and a run out to Chicago, maybe. That was before I had the
pleasure of meeting you. Get as far as the Yosemite? No? Well, you were
there long enough anyhow to realise that our hotels are run on the free
will system."
"I remember," said Mr. Mafferton. "All the luxuries of the coming
season, printed on a card usually about a foot long. A great variety,
and very difficult to understand. When I had finished trying to
translate the morning paper, I used to attack the card. I found that it
threw quite a light upon early American civilisation from the aboriginal
side. 'Hominy,' 'Grits,' 'Buckwheats,' 'Cantelopes,' are some of the
dishes I remember. 'Succotash,' too, and 'creamed squash,' but I think
they occurred at dinner generally. I used to summon the waiter, and
when he came to take my orders I would ask him to derive those dishes. I
had great difficulty after a time in summoning a waiter. But the plan
gave me many interesting half hours. In the end I usually ordered a
chop."
"I don't want to run down your politics," poppa said, "but that's what I
call being too conservative. Augusta, if you have had enough of the Bay
of Naples and the moon, I might remind you of the buried city of
Pompeii, which is on for to-morrow. It's a good long way out, and you'll
want all your powers of endurance. I'm going down to have a smoke, and a
look at the humorous publications of Italy. There's no sort of
sociability about these hotels, but the head _portier_ knows a little
English."
"I suppose I had better retire," momma admitted, "though I sometimes
wish Mr. Wick wasn't so careful of my nervous system. Delicious scene,
good-night." And she too left us.
We were sitting in a narrow balcony that seemed to jut out of a horn of
the city's lovely crescent. Dicky and Isabel occupied chairs at a
distance nicely calculated to necessitate a troublesome raising of the
voice to communicate with them. Mrs. Portheris was still confined to her
room with what was understood to be the constitutional shock of her
experiences in the Catacombs. Dicky, in joyful privacy, assured me that
nobody could recover from a combination of Roman tallow and French kid
in less than a week, but I told him he did not know the British
constitution.
[Illustration: We were sitting in a narrow balcony.]
The moon sailed high over Naples, and lighted the lapping curve of her
perfect bay in the deepest, softest blue, and showed us some of the
nearer houses of the city, sloping and shouldering and creeping down,
that they were pink and yellow and parti-coloured, while the rest curved
and glimmered round the water in all tender tones of white holding up a
thousand lamps. And behind, curving too, the hills stood clear, with the
grey phantom of Vesuvius in sharp familiar lines, sending up its stream
of steady red, and now and then a leaping flame. It was a scene to wake
the latent sentiment of even a British bosom. I thought I would stay a
little longer.
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