We had had an abundance of fruit, but were not averse to a little dinner, yet none appeared to be forthcoming. Unsubstantial as it was to us, all that we had to say was meat and drink to the people. Rapt in excitement they stood listening to the stories of the land of their heart’s desire, and no thought of food disturbed them. At seven o’clock my wife had told all that could be told of dresses, manners and customs in America. At eight o’clock I concluded an impromptu lecture on the topic of American liberty; still no dinner. At nine o’clock my wife had answered the last of the questions on the cost of groceries, rent and clothes, but no one mentioned dinner. At 9:30 I had described with minuteness what factories and mills were like, and my wife was expressing her liking for Italian dishes. At ten (having lunched at eleven o’clock that morning) we both showed signs of faintness, but still talked on. At eleven all the children were asleep on the floor or in their mothers’ arms, my wife seemed dead of fatigue, and my own exhaustion was complete, when something broke the spell and Mrs. Squadrito suddenly threw up her hands with a pious ejaculation and darted up-stairs. In ten minutes we were seated at a most delightful supper, including a heaping dish of boiled snails. The whole family had forgotten in the excitement that neither they nor we had dined, but they certainly made up for the oversight. In this house, as in most others, the top floor was used for the dining-room and kitchen. The kitchen was in one corner—a sort of low altar of stone and plaster, with a hollow in the centre for charcoal. As some American architects have learned, cooking done on the top floor neither scents up nor heats the house. We sat chatting about the table until the cracked bell in the tower of the church in the square struck one, then my wife and I sought the repose and comfort of the big, high-set bed of the guest-room. It was a strange sound which awoke me. Paradoxically, it was something very familiar. Clear and sweet, very distinct in the air of the early morning, a boy’s voice high up in the terraced vineyards on the slope before the town was singing: “Who was it called them down? ’Twas Mister Dooley, brave Mister Dooley, The finest man this country ever knew; Diplomatic, Democratic, Oh! Mister Dooley—ooley—ooh.”