formerly subject to Genoa, and remained a comparatively unimportant place until Cosmo I. exchanged for it the Episcopal town of Sarzana. I had quite exhausted the few objects of interest around me, and my outward resources were reduced to hearing Madame Ungher in Lucrezia Borgia in the evening, and dining in the afternoon in the pleasant garden of a popular restaurant; when, one day as I was walking along a crowded street, my attention was arrested by a singular figure ensconced in the doorway of a fashionable inn. It was a lank, sharp-featured man, clad in linsey-woolsey, with a white felt hat on his head and an enormous twisted stick in his hand. He was looking about him with a shrewd gaze in which inquisitiveness and contempt were strangely mingled. The moment I came opposite to him, he drew a very large silver watch from his fob, and, after inspecting it for a moment with an impatient air, exclaimed, “I say, stranger, what time do they dine in these parts?” “At this house the dinner hour is about five.” “Five! why I’m half starved and its only twelve. I can’t stand it later than two. I say, I guess you’re from the States?” “Yes.” “Maybe you came here to be cured of dyspeps_y_?” “Not exactly.” “Well, I’m glad of it, for it’s a plaguy waste of money. I just arrived from New Orleans, and there was a man on board who made the trip all on account of dyspeps_y_. I as good as told him he was a fool for his pains. I know a thing or two, I guess. You see that stick? Well, with that stick I’ve killed six alligators. There’s only one thing that’s a certain cure for dyspeps_y_. “And what’s that?” For a moment the stranger made no reply, but twisted his stick and gave a wily glance from his keen, gray eyes, with the air of a man who can keep his own counsel. “You want to know what will cure dyspeps_y_?” “Yes.” “Well then—_Speculation!_” After this announcement the huge stick was planted very sturdily, and the spectral figure drawn up to its utmost tension, as if challenging contradiction. Apparently satisfied with my tacit acceptance of the proposition, the man of alligators grew more complacent.