A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

and one breakfasts there and enjoys the passing show.

We wandered all over the town, enjoying whatever was going

on in the streets. We took one omnibus ride, and as I

did not speak Italian and could not ask the price, I held

out some copper coins to the conductor, and he took two.

Then he went and got his tariff card and showed me that he

had taken only the right sum. So I made a note–Italian

omnibus conductors do not cheat.

Near the Cathedral I saw another instance of probity.

An old man was peddling dolls and toy fans. Two small

American children and one gave the old man a franc

and three copper coins, and both started away; but they

were called back, and the franc and one of the coppers

were restored to them. Hence it is plain that in Italy,

parties connected with the drama and the omnibus and the toy

interests do not cheat.

The stocks of goods in the shops were not extensive, generally.

In the vestibule of what seemed to be a clothing store,

we saw eight or ten wooden dummies grouped together,

clothed in woolen business suits and each marked with its price.

One suit was marked forty-five francs–nine dollars.

Harris stepped in and said he wanted a suit like that.

Nothing easier: the old merchant dragged in the dummy,

brushed him off with a broom, stripped him, and shipped

the clothes to the hotel. He said he did not keep two

suits of the same kind in stock, but manufactured a second

when it was needed to reclothe the dummy.

In another quarter we found six Italians engaged

in a violent quarrel. They danced fiercely about,

gesticulating with their heads, their arms, their legs,

their whole bodies; they would rush forward occasionally

with a sudden access of passion and shake their fists

in each other’s very faces. We lost half an hour there,

waiting to help cord up the dead, but they finally embraced

each other affectionately, and the trouble was over.

The episode was interesting, but we could not have afforded

all the time to it if we had known nothing was going

to come of it but a reconciliation. Note made–in Italy,

people who quarrel cheat the spectator.

We had another disappointment afterward. We approached

a deeply interested crowd, and in the midst of it

found a fellow wildly chattering and gesticulating

over a box on the ground which was covered with a piece

of old blanket. Every little while he would bend down

and take hold of the edge of the blanket with the extreme

tips of his fingertips, as if to show there was no

deception–chattering away all the while–but always,

just as I was expecting to see a wonder feat of legerdemain,

he would let go the blanket and rise to explain further.

However, at last he uncovered the box and got out a spoon

with a liquid in it, and held it fair and frankly around,

for people to see that it was all right and he was taking

no advantage–his chatter became more excited than ever.

I supposed he was going to set fire to the liquid and

swallow it, so I was greatly wrought up and interested.

I got a cent ready in one hand and a florin in the other,

intending to give him the former if he survived and the

latter if he killed himself–for his loss would be my gain

in a literary way, and I was willing to pay a fair price

for the item –but this impostor ended his intensely

moving performance by simply adding some powder to the

liquid and polishing the spoon! Then he held it aloft,

and he could not have shown a wilder exultation if he

had achieved an immortal miracle. The crowd applauded

in a gratified way, and it seemed to me that history

speaks the truth when it says these children of the south

are easily entertained.

We spent an impressive hour in the noble cathedral, where long

shafts of tinted light were cleaving through the solemn

dimness from the lofty windows and falling on a pillar here,

a picture there, and a kneeling worshiper yonder.