It was at Orbatello, I think, that we made the travelling acquaintance of the enterprising little gentleman to whom momma still mysteriously alludes as "il capitano." He bowed ceremoniously as he entered the carriage and stowed the inevitable enormous valise in the rack, and his eye brightened intelligently as he saw we were a family of American tourists. He wore a rather seamy black uniform and a soft felt hat with cocks' feathers drooping over it, and a sword and a ridiculously amiable expression for a man. I don't think he was five feet high, but his moustache and his feathers and his sword were out of all proportion. There was a gentle trustful exuberance about him which suggested that, although it was possibly twenty-five years since he was born, his age was much less than that. He twirled his moustache in voluble silence for ten minutes while we all furtively scrutinised him with the curiosity inspired by a foreigner of any size, and then with a smile of conscious sweetness he asked the Senator if he might take the liberty to give the trouble to see the English newspaper for a few seconds only. "I should be too thankful," he added. "Why certainly," said poppa, much gratified. "I see you spikkum English," he added encouragingly. "I speak--um, _si_. I have learned some--a few of them. But O very baddili I speak them!" "I guess that's just your modesty," said poppa kindly. "But that's not an English paper, you know--it's published in New York." "Ah!" he exclaimed with enthusiasm. "That will be much _much_ the more pleasurable for me." His eyes shone with feeling. "In Italy," he added with an impulsive gesture, "we love the American peoples beyond the Londonian. We always remember that it was an Italian, Cristoforo Col----" "I know," said poppa. "Very nice of you. But what's your reason now, for preferring Americans as a nation?" We saw our first Italian shrug. It is more prolonged, more sentimental than French ones. In this case it expressed the direct responsibility of Fate. "I think," he said, "that they are more _simpatica_--sympatheticated to us." He seemed to be unaware of me, but his eye rested upon momma at this point, and took her into his confidence. "We also," said she reciprocally, "are always charmed to see Italians in our country."