and everything about her,
particularly her sailing, betrays her real name. We hear there is a man
in her who once belonged to our own ship, a certain Ithuel Bolt--"

"Cospetto!" exclaimed the podesta. "Then we must set down this Sir
Smees, after all, for an arrant rogue; for this is the very man we met
at Benedetta's the past night. An Americano, Signor Tenente, is he not?"

"Why, the fellow _pretends_ to be some such thing," answered the young
man, coloring, for he was loath to confess the wrong that had been done
the deserter; "but half the British seamen one falls in with nowadays
call themselves Americans, in order to escape serving his Majesty. I
rather think this rascal is a Cornish or a Devonshire man; he has the
twang and the nasal sing-song of that part of the island. If an
American, however, we have a better right to him than the French;
speaking our language and being descended from a common ancestry and
having a common character, it is quite unnatural for an American to
serve any but the English."

"I did not know that, Vice-governatore! I thought the Americani a very
inferior sort of people to us Europeans, generally, and that they could
scarcely claim to be our equals in any sense."

"You are quite right, Signor Podesta," said the lieutenant, briskly;
"they are all you think them; and any one can see that at a glance.
Degenerate Englishmen, we call them in the service."

"And yet you take them occasionally, Signor Tenente; and, as I
understand from this Ithuello, frequently contrary to their wishes and
by force," dryly observed Andrea Barrofaldi.

"How can we help it, Signore? The king has a right to and he has need of
the services of all his own seamen; and, in the hurry of impressing, we
sometimes make a mistake. Then, these Yankees are so like our own
people, that I would defy the devil himself to tell them apart."

The vice-governatore thought there was something contradictory in all
this, and he subsequently said as much to his friend the podesta; but
the matter went no further at the moment, most probably because he
ascertained that the young lieutenant was only using what might be
termed a national argument; the English Government constantly protesting
that it was impossible to distinguish one people from the other, _quoad_
this particular practice; while nothing was more offensive to their
eyes, in the abstract, than to maintain any affinity in appearance or
characteristics.

The result of