ratulated themselves on. Having
got rid of their followers.

In vain!

Scarcely had they emerged from the cafe than Dick uttered a cry of
horror. From behind a corner advanced their ten friends, with the
same calm demeanor, the game unruffled and even cheerful patience,
and the same respectful offer of their humble services.

In despair they separated. Buttons and Dick obtained lodgings in the
Strada di San Bartollomeo. The Senator and the other two engaged
pleasant rooms on the Strada Nuova, which overlooked the Bay.

Certainly Naples is a very curious place. There are magnificent
edifices--palaces, monuments, castles, fortresses, churches, and
cathedrals. There are majestic rows of buildings; gay shops,
splendidly decorated; stately colonnades, and gardens like Paradise.
There are streets unrivalled for gayety, forever filled to overflowing
with the busy, the laughing, the jolly; dashing officers, noisy
soldiers, ragged lazaroni, proud nobles, sickly beggars, lovely
ladies; troops of cavalry galloping up and down; ten thousand caleches
dashing to and fro. There is variety enough everywhere.

All the trades are divided, and arranged in different parts of the
city. Here are the locksmiths, there the cabinet-makers; here the
builders, there the armorers; in this place the basket-weavers, in
that the cork-makers.

And most amusing of all is the street most favored of the lazaroni.
Here they live, and move, and have their being; here they are born,
they grow, they wed, they rear families, they eat, and drink, and die.
A long array of furnaces extends up the street; over each is a
stew-pan, and behind each a cook armed with an enormous ladle. At all
hours of the day the cook serves up macaroni to customers. This is the
diet of the people.

In the cellars behind those lines of stew-pans are the eating-houses
of the vulgar--low, grimy places, floors incrusted with mud, tables of
thick deal worn by a thousand horny hands, slippery with ten thousand
upset dishes of macaroni. Here the pewter plates, and the iron knives,
forks, and spoons are chained to the massive tables. How utter must
the destitution be when it is thought necessary to chain up such
worthless trash!

Into one of these places went Buttons and Dick in their study of human
nature. They sat at the table. A huge dish of macaroni was served up.
Fifty guests stopped to look at the new-comers. The waiters winked at
the customers of the house, and thrust thei