OUR GUIDE IN GENOA AND ROME

European guides know about enough English to tangle everything up so that a man can make neither head nor tail of it. They know their story by heart, the history of every statue, painting, cathedral, or other wonder they show you. They know it and tell it as a parrot would,— and if you interrupt, and throw them off the track they have to go back and begin over again. All their lives long, they are employed in showing strange things to foreigners and listening to their bursts of admiration.

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It is human nature to take delight in exciting admiration. It is what prompts children to say smart" things, and do absurd ones, and in other ways "show off" when company is present. It is what makes gossips turn out in rain and storm to go and be the first to tell a startling bit of news. Think, then, what a passion it becomes with a guide, whose privilege it is, every day, to show to strangers wonders that throw them into perfect ecstacies of admiration. He gets so that he could not by any possibility live in a soberer atmosphere.

After we discovered this, we never went into ecstacies any more,— we never admired anything,— we never showed any but impassible faces and stupid indifference in the presence of the sublimest wonders a guide had to display. We had found their weak point. We have made good use of it ever since. We have made some of these people savage, at times, but we have never lost our serenity.

The doctor asks the questions generally, because he can keep his countenance, and look more like an inspired idiot, and throw more imbecility into the tone of his voice than any man that lives. It comes natural to him.

The guides in Genoa are delighted to secure an American party, because Americans so much wonder, and deal so much in sentiment and emotion before any relic of Columbus. Our guide there fidgeted about as if he had swallowed a spring mattress. He was full of animation,- full of impatience. He said:

"Come wis me, genteelmen!—come! I show you ze letter writing by Christopher Colombo!-write it himself! - write it wis his own hand!-come!"

He took us to the municipal palace. After much impressive fumbling of keys and opening of locks, the stained and aged docu

ment was spread before us. The guide's eyes sparkled. He danced about us and tapped the parchment with his finger:

"What I tell you, genteelmen! Is it not so? See! handwriting Christopher Colombo!-write it himself!"

We looked indifferent,- unconcerned. The doctor examined the document very deliberately, during a painful pause. Then he said, without any show of interest,

Ah,- Ferguson,— what - what did you say was the name of the party who wrote this?"

"Christopher Colombo! ze great Christopher Colombo!" Another deliberate examination.

"Ah,- did he write it himself, or, or how?"

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He write it himself! - Christopher Colombo! he's own handwriting, write by himself!"

Then the doctor laid the document down and said,

"Why, I have seen boys in America only fourteen years old that could write better than that."

But zis is ze great Christo-"

"I don't care who it is! It's the worst writing I ever saw. Now you must n't think you can impose on us because we are strangers. We are not fools, by a good deal. If you have got any specimens of penmanship of real merit, trot them out!- and if you have n't, drive on!

We drove on. The guide was considerably shaken up, but he made one more venture. He had something which he thought would overcome us. He said,―

"Ah, genteelmen, you come wis me! I show you beautiful, O, magnificent bust Christopher Colombo! - splendid, grand, magnificent!"

He brought us before the beautiful bust,- for it was beautiful,- and sprang back and struck an attitude: :

Ah, look, genteelmen! - beautiful, grand,-bust Christopher Colombo! - beautiful bust, beautiful pedestal!"

The doctor put up his eye-glass,-procured for such occasions:

"Ah,- what did you say this gentleman's name was?" "Christopher Colombo! ze great Christopher Colombo!" "Christopher Colombo,- the great Christopher Colombo, Well, what did he do?"

"Discover America! - discover America, O, ze devil!"

"Discover America. No, that statement will hardly wash. We are just from America ourselves. We heard nothing about it. Christopher Colombo,- pleasant name,- is—is he dead?"

"O, corpo di Baccho!-three hundred year!"

"What did he die of?"

-

"I do not know, genteelmen, I do not know what he die of." "Measles, likely?"

"Maybe, maybe. I do not know, I think he die of somethings.'

"Ah,- which is the bust and which is the pedestal?"

"Ah, I see, I see-happy combination,- very happy combination indeed. Is is this the first time this gentleman was ever on a bust?"

That joke was lost on the foreigner,- guides cannot master the subtleties of the American joke.

We have made it interesting for this Roman guide. Yesterday we spent three or four hours in the Vatican again, that wonderful world of curiosities. We came very near expressing interest sometimes, even admiration. It was hard to keep from it. We succeeded, though. Nobody else ever did, in the Vatican museums. The guide was bewildered, nonplussed. He walked his legs off nearly, hunting up extraordinary things, and exhausted all his ingenuity on us, but it was a failure; we never showed any interest in anything. He had reserved what he considered to be his greatest wonder till the last, a royal Egyptian mummy, the best preserved in the world, perhaps. He took us there. He felt so sure, this time, that some of his old enthusiasm came back to him:

See, genteelmen! - Mummy! Mummy!"

The eye-glass came up as calmly, as deliberately as ever. "Ah,- Ferguson,- what did I understand you to say the gentleman's name was?"

"Name? - he got no name! Mummy!-'Gyptian mum

my!”

"Yes, yes. Born here?"
"No. 'Gyptian mummy.”

"Ah, just so. Frenchman, I presume?

"No! not Frenchman, not Roman! - born in Egypta!"

"Born in Egypta. Never heard of Egypta before. Foreign locality, likely. Mummy,- mummy. How calm he is, how selfpossessed! Isah!-is he dead?"

"O, sacre bler! been dead three thousan' year!"

The doctor urned on him savagely:

"Here, now, what do you mean by such conduct as this? Playing us for Chinamen because we are strangers and trying to learn! Trying to impose your vile second-hand carcasses on us! Thunder and lightning! I've a notion to to If you've got a nice fresh corpse, fetch him out!—or, by George, we 'll brain you!"

We make it exceedingly interesting for this Frenchman. However, he has paid us back, partly, without knowing it. He came to the hotel this morning to ask if we were up, and he endeavored, as well as he could, to describe us, so that the landlord would know which persons he meant. He finished with the casual remark that we were lunatics. The observation was so innocent and so honest that it amounted to a very good thing for a guide to say.

Our Roman Ferguson is the most patient, unsuspecting, longsuffering subject we have had yet. We shall be sorry to part with him. We have enjoyed his society very much. We trust he has enjoyed ours, but we are harassed with doubts.

- Samuel L. Clemens.

THE SUBSCRIPTION LIST

On the Sunday in question, Father Phil intended delivering an address to his flock from the altar, urging them to the necessity of bestirring themselves in the repairs of the chapel, which was in a very dilapidated condition, and at one end let in the rain through its worn-out thatch. A subscription was necessary: and to raise this among a very impoverished people was no easy matter. The weather happened to be unfavorable, which was most favorable to Father Phil's purpose, for the rain dropped its arguments through the roof upon the kneeling people below, in the most convincing manner; and as they endeavored to get out of the wet, they pressed round the altar as much as they could, for which they were reproved very smartly by his Reverence in the very midst of the mass. These interruptions occurred sometimes in the most serious

places, producing a ludicrous effect, of which the worthy Father was quite unconscious, in his great anxiety to make the people repair the chapel.

A big woman was elbowing her way towards the rails of the altar, and Father Phil, casting a sidelong glance at her, sent her to the right-about, while he interrupted his appeal to Heaven to address her thus: :

"Agnus Dei - You'd betther jump over the rails of the althar, I think. Go along out o' that; there's plenty o' room in the chapel below there'

Then he would turn to the altar, and proceed with the service, till, turning again to the congregation, he perceived some fresh offender.

"Orate fratres! Will you mind what I say to you, and go along out of that, there's room below there. Thrue for you, Mrs. Finn,- it's a shame for him ter be thramplin' on you. Go along, Darby Casy, down there, and kneel in the rain,- it's a pity you have n't a decent woman's cloak under you, indeed! — Orate fratres!"

Then would the service proceed again, till the shuffling of feet edging out of the rain would disturb him, and, casting a backward glance, he would say,

"I hear you there, can't you be quiet, and not be disturbin' my mass, you haythens?"

Again he proceeded, till the crying of a child interrupted him. He looked round quickly

"You'd betther kill the child, I think, thrampiin' on him, Lavery. Go out o' that,- your conduct is scandalous - Dominus vobiscum!"

Again he turned to pray, and after some time he made an interval in the service to address his congregation on the subject of the repairs, and produced a paper containing the names of subscribers to that pious work who had already contributed, by way of example to those who had not.

Here it is," said Father Phil,-" here it is, and no denying it,- down in black and white; but if they who give are down in black, how much blacker are those who have not given at all! But I hope they will be ashamed of themselves when I howld up those to honor who have contributed to the uphowlding of the house of God. And is n't it ashamed o' yourselves you ought to be, to lave