The average Italian living in America would rather go to prison for five or ten years than be deported. And many an Italian gladly goes to prison to be maintained while he learns a trade and how to read and write English. It seemed strange indeed to be leading a company of honest country folk along a street so noted for its dark crimes, but in the hearty greetings and hospitality of the people about us in the Pallonetto there was no sign of the blackness of that other day. It was most amusing when I piled the whole crowd on a car bound out toward Possilipo, past the villas on the northern rim of the wonderful bay. I had let many cars go by till I saw one coming that was nearly empty, and when we were all in we nearly filled it. The boys all wanted to sit together. They were in high glee, and crowded nine into one seat, to the dismay of the conductor and the entertainment of the other passengers. The conductor stopped the car and straightened them out, distributing them into empty places. When the car was going at full speed I looked back and saw that every one was holding on to the seat for dear life, and watching Antonio and myself anxiously to see if we gave any sign that we were in danger. Having occasion to change cars, Concetta and Camela lost their heads and sprang upon the other car while it was still in motion. Antonio and the conductor caught them and lifted them up, or else one or the other would certainly have been hurt. If our people were so overwhelmed by life in Naples I wondered what they would do in New York. However, before this evening trip was over, and we went back to the Albergo della Rosa, my wife and I both remarked a change that had come over all, especially the younger ones. It was one of the first displays of their adaptability,—one of the best characteristics of the Italians now pouring into America. In a few hours they had got a fine grasp on city ways, and the people we brought back to the emigrant lodging-house behaved far differently from those we had taken away. The wild look was gone from Concetta’s eyes, and only in the roar of Broadway did I see it again. There is no part of southern Italy where the flea is not a bloodthirsty brigand, but in Naples he seems to partake of the characteristics of the city and is clever, wily, bold, and—oh! so numerous. In the Albergo della Rosa, that night, it really seemed that the vermin of southern Europe, brought to the lodging-house by emigrants from all lands, had assembled for an international clinic, and we were the subjects. If that great man who makes animals talk in his books had only been there, he would have heard the Grecian bedbug telling the Russian Jew louse that he and the Syrian sand-gnat had just had a choice nip of raw American that had been pointed out to him by the Calabrese fleas who were first-cousins of their hosts the Neapolitans.