g of
Italian') delivered himself in this explicit and clear Italian to the
principal performer--'Now Signora, if you don't sheer off you'll be run
down, so you had better trice up that guitar of yours and put about.'"

At Naples some days were passed very merrily; going up Vesuvius and into
the buried cities, with Layard who had joined them, and with the
Tennents. Here a small adventure befell Dickens specially, in itself
extremely unimportant; but told by him with delightful humour in a
letter to his sister-in-law. The old idle Frenchman, to whom all things
are possible, with his snuff-box and dusty umbrella, and all the
delicate and kindly observation, would have enchanted Leigh Hunt, and
made his way to the heart of Charles Lamb. After mentioning Mr. Lowther,
then English charge d'affaires in Naples, as a very agreeable fellow who
had been at the Rockingham play, he alludes to a meeting at his house.
"We had an exceedingly pleasant dinner of eight, preparatory to which I
was near having the ridiculous adventure of not being able to find the
house and coming back dinnerless. I went in an open carriage from the
hotel in all state, and the coachman to my surprise pulled up at the end
of the Chiaja. 'Behold the house,' says he, 'of Il Signor Larthoor!'--at
the same time pointing with his whip into the seventh heaven where the
early stars were shining. 'But the Signor Larthorr,' says I, 'lives at
Pausilippo.' 'It is true,' says the coachman (still pointing to the
evening star), 'but he lives high up the Salita Sant' Antonio where no
carriage ever yet ascended, and that is the house' (evening star as
aforesaid), 'and one must go on foot. Behold the Salita Sant' Antonio!'
I went up it, a mile and a half I should think, I got into the strangest
places among the wildest Neapolitans; kitchens, washing-places,
archways, stables, vineyards; was baited by dogs, and answered, in
profoundly unintelligible language, from behind lonely locked doors in
cracked female voices, quaking with fear; but could hear of no such
Englishman, nor any Englishman. Bye and bye, I came upon a polenta-shop
in the clouds, where an old Frenchman with an umbrella like a faded
tropical leaf (it had not rained in Naples for six weeks) was staring at
nothing at all, with a snuff-box in his hand. To him I appealed,
concerning the Signor Larthoor. 'Sir,' said he, with the sweetest
politeness, 'can you speak French?' 'Sir,' said I, 'a little.' 'Sir,'
said he,