g import; for, after expressing,
and not always in most measured phrase, the indignant disappointment of
the writers, it went on to throw out, but in a cloud-like misty sort
of way, the terrible consequences that might ensue when they returned to
England with the story of their rejection.

"Perhaps this was a mere chance shot; at all events, it decided the
battle. The Garibaldians read it as a declaration of strict blockade;
and that, from the hour of these ladies' arrival in England, all
supplies would be stopped. Now, as it happened that, in by far the
greater number of cases, the articles sent out found their way to the
suite of Garibaldi, not to the General himself, and that cambric shirts
and choice hosiery, silk vests, and fur-lined slippers, became the
ordinary wear of people to whom such luxuries were not known even by
description, it was no mean menace that seemed to declare all this was
to have an end.

"One used to sleep in a rich fur dressing-gown; another took a bottle of
Arundel's port at his breakfast; a third was habituating himself to that
English liqueur called 'Punch sauce,' and so on; and they very reasonably
disliked coming back to the dietary supplied by Victor Emmanuel.

"It was in this critical emergency that an inventive genius developed
itself. There was amongst the suite of Garibaldi an old surgeon, Eipari,
one of the most faithful and attached of all his followers, and who bore
that amount of resemblance to Garibaldi which could be imparted by hair,
mustache, and beard of the same yellowish-red colour, and eyes somewhat
closely set. To put the doctor in bed, and make him personate the
General, was the plan--a plan which, as it was meant to save his chief
some annoyance, he would have acceded to were it to cost him far more
than was now intended.

"To the half-darkened room, therefore, where Eipari lay dressed in
his habitual red shirt, propped up by pillows, the deputation was
introduced. The sight of the hero was, however, too much for them. One
dropped, Madonna-wise, with hands clasped across her bosom, at the foot
of his bed; another fainted as she passed the threshold; a third gained
the bedside to grasp his hand, and sank down in an ecstasy of devotion
to water it with her tears; while the strong-minded woman of the party
took out her scissors and cut four several locks off that dear and noble
head. They sobbed over him--they blubbered over him--they compared him
with his photograph,