rst met Pharos at the foot
of Cleopatra's Needle that within a very short space of time I should be
driving from Pompeii to Naples alone with him, I believe I should have
laughed that person to scorn. And what is perhaps stranger, seeing how
intense my dislike for him had been less than two hours before, I was
not only paying attention to what he said to me, but was actually
deriving a certain measure of enjoyment from his society. In my time I
have met some of the cleverest talkers in Europe, men whose
conversational powers are above the average, and to whom it is rightly
enough considered a privilege to listen. Pharos, however, equalled if he
did not exceed them all. His range of topics was extraordinary, and his
language as easy and graceful as it was free from the commonplace. Upon
every conceivable subject he had some information to impart, and in the
cases of events in the world's history, he did so with the same peculiar
suggestion of being able to speak from the point of an eye-witness, or,
at least, as one who had lived in the same period, that I had noticed
when he conducted me through the ruins of Pompeii that afternoon. The
topography of the country through which we were passing he also had at
his fingers' ends. About every portion of the landscape he had some
remark of interest to make, and when we had exhausted Italy and
proceeded to more distant countries, I found that he was equally
conversant with the cities they contained. How long the drive lasted I
can not say; but never in my experience of the high road between Naples
and Pompeii had it seemed so short. Reaching the Castello del Carmine we
turned sharply to our right, passed up the Corso Garibaldi for some
considerable distance, and eventually branched off to the left. After
that, I have no further knowledge of our route. We traversed street
after street, some of them so narrow that there was barely room for our
carriage to pass along, until at last we reached a thoroughfare that not
only contained better houses than the rest, but was considerably wider.
Before a large, old-fashioned residence the horses came to a standstill;
a pair of exquisitely wrought-iron gates guarding a noble archway were
thrown open, and through them we passed into the courtyard beyond.
Beautiful as many of the courtyards are in Naples, I think this one
eclipsed them all. The house surrounded it on three sides; on the
fourth, and opposite that by which we had entered, was the