When at last, by leisurely stages, we arrived at Florence, I felt there was no use in doing things by halves. If you are going to start the Florentine School of Stenography and Typewriting, you may as well start it on a proper basis. So I took sunny rooms at a nice hotel for myself and Elsie, and hired a ground floor in a convenient house, close under the shadow of the great marble Campanile. (Considerations of space compel me to curtail the usual gush about Arnolfo and Giotto.) This was our office. When I had got a Tuscan painter to plant our flag in the shape of a sign-board, I sailed forth into the street and inspected it from outside with a swelling heart. It is true, the Tuscan painter's unaccountable predilection for the rare spellings 'Scool' without an _h_ and 'Stenografy' with an _f_, somewhat damped my exuberant pride for the moment; but I made him take the board back and correct his Italianate English. As soon as all was fitted up with desk and tables we reposed upon our laurels, and waited only for customers in shoals to pour in upon us. _I_ called them 'customers'; Elsie maintained that we ought rather to say 'clients.' Being by temperament averse to sectarianism, I did not dispute the point with her. We reposed on our laurels--in vain. Neither customers nor clients seemed in any particular hurry to disturb our leisure. I confess I took this ill. It was a rude awakening. I had begun to regard myself as the special favourite of a fairy godmother; it surprised me to find that any undertaking of mine did not succeed immediately. However, reflecting that my fairy godmother's name was really Enterprise, I recalled Mr. Cyrus W. Hitchcock's advice, and advertised. 'There's one good thing about Florence, Elsie,' I said, just to keep up her courage. 'When the customers _do_ come, they'll be interesting people, and it will be interesting work. Artistic work, don't you know--Fra Angelico, and Della Robbia, and all that sort of thing; or else fresh light on Dante and Petrarch!' 'When they _do_ come, no doubt,' Elsie answered, dubiously. 'But do you know, Brownie, it strikes me there isn't quite that literary stir and ferment one might expect in Florence. Dante and Petrarch appear to be dead. The distinguished authors fail to stream in upon us as one imagined with manuscripts to copy.' I affected an air of confidence--for I had sunk capital in the concern (that's business-like--sunk capital!). 'Oh, we're a new firm,' I assented, carelessly. 'Our enterprise is yet young. When cultivated Florence learns we're here, cultivated Florence will invade us in its thousands.'