“Here he comes again. Only look at the misery in the fellow’s face! and you see he has his orders evidently enough; and he dare not hurry me. I think I’ll have a bath before I start.” “It is scarcely fair, after all,” said I. “I suppose he wants to get back to his one o’clock dinner.” “I could no more feel for a gendarme than I could compassionate a scorpion. Take the best-natured fellow in Europe--the most generous, the most trustful, the most unsuspecting--make a brigadier of Gendarmerie of him for three months, and he’ll come out scarcely a shade brighter than the veriest rascal he has handcuffed! Do you know what our friend yonder is at now?” “No. He appears to be trying to take a stain out of one of his yellow gauntlets.” “No such thing. He is noting down your features--taking a written portrait of you, as the man who sat at breakfast with me on a certain morning of a certain month. Take my word for it, some day or other when you purchase a hat too tall in the crown, or you are seen to wear your whiskers a trifle too long or bushy, an intimation will reach you at your hotel, that the Prefect would like to talk with you; the end of which will be the question, ‘Whether there is not a friend you are most anxious to meet in Switzerland, or if you have not an uncle impatient to see you at Trieste?’ And yet,” added he, after a pause, “the Piedmontese are models of liberality and legality in comparison with the officials in the south. In Sicily, for instance, the laws are more corruptly administered than in Turkey. I’ll tell you a case, which was, however, more absurd than anything else. An English official, well known at Messina, and on the most intimate terms with the Prefect, came back from a short shooting-excursion he had made into the interior, half frantic with the insolence of the servants at a certain inn. The proprietor was absent, and the waiter and the cook--not caring, perhaps, to be disturbed for a single traveller--had first refused flatly to admit him; and afterwards, when he had obtained entrance, treated him to the worst of food, intimating at the same time it was better than he was used to, and plainly giving him to understand that on the very slightest provocation they were prepared to give him a sound thrashing. Boiling over with passion, he got back to Messina, and hastened to recount his misfortunes to his friend in power. “‘Where did it happen?’ asked the hard-worked Prefect, with folly enough on his hands without having to deal with the sorrows of Great Britons. “‘At Spalla deMonte.’ “‘When?’ “‘On Wednesday last, the 23d.’ “‘What do you want me to do with them?’ “‘To punish them, of course.’ “‘How--in what way?’ “‘How do I know? Send them to jail.’ “‘For how long?’ “‘A month if you can--a fortnight at least.’ “‘What are the names?’ asked the Prefect, who all this time continued to write, filling up certain blanks in some printed formula before him.