"We had some trouble with the landlord, a thick-headed bourgeois who got some stupid idea into his head about overcrowding. I have no patience with these bourgeois prejudices. One day he came round to complain about our numbers, and at not receiving his rent. But we were prepared for him. We assembled in full force, and sang the _Marseillaise_ and the _Inno dei Lavoratori_, and danced the _Carmagnole_. I took out my eye and looked very threatening--one glance at us was enough for the old fellow. He made the sign of the cross and fled before we had time to tear him to pieces. "Well, my two hundred francs was a very large sum, and not paying the rent was economical, but it dwindled, and I had to look round again for ways and means to feed us all. The money came to an end at last and then the real struggle began. Old Castellani, the landlord, kept a large stock of sacks of potatoes in a cellar, and every day he used to go in and take a few out for his own use, and then lock the cellar up again, mean old brute! But once again I was one too many for him. I collected large quantities of stones in the day-time, and then at night with a skeleton key I had acquired--it came out of Meneghino's bag which we always jeered at--I let myself in and from the farthest sacks I abstracted potatoes and refilled them with stones. I calculated that at the slow rate he used them he would not notice his loss till March. What a scene there will be then, _Misericordia_! During the last fortnight of our stay we lived almost entirely on my potatoes. I don't know how the devil they would all have got on without me. It is true that a waitress at the Panetteria Viennese fell in love with Meneghino, and used to pass him on stale bread; but then you all know his appetite! He ate it nearly all himself on the way home. One day I sent Bonatelli out to reconnoitre. He returned with _one mushroom_!" It would be quite impossible to convey an idea of the intense contempt contained in these last words. It was a most eloquent denunciation of impotence and irresolution. "All the same we had a grand time in Lugano. And the week I and Migliassi spent in prison was a great treat. Why, they treated us like popes, I can tell you--as much food as you like, and the best quality at that; no work, a comfortable cell, and a bed all to yourself! And the bread! I never tasted anything like it in my life: they sent to Como for it all. Lugano bread was not good enough. Ah, Swiss prisons are a grand institution, and I hope to spend a happy old age in such a place yet.