The police require to know, before they will let me go on peaceably
to-morrow, first, What my name is in full? (Answered easily enough.)
Second, What is my nation? (British, and delighted to cast it in the
teeth of continental tyrants.) Third, Where was I born? (In
London--parish of Marylebone--and I wish my native vestry knew how the
Austrian authorities were using me.) Fourth, where do I live? (In
London, again--and I have half a mind to write to the Times about this
nuisance before I go to bed.) Fifth, how old am I? (My age is what it
has been for the last seven years, and what it will remain till
further notice--twenty-five exactly.) What next? By all that is
inquisitive, here are the police wanting to know (Sixth) whether I am
married or single! Landlord, what is the Italian for Bachelor? "Write
Nubile, signor." Nubile? That means Marriageable. Permit me to remark,
my good sir, that this is a woman's definition of a bachelor--not a
man's. No matter, let it pass. What next? (O distrustful despots! what
next?) Seventh, What is my condition? (First-rate condition, to be
sure,--full of rolled beef, toasted larks, and effervescent wine.
Condition! What do they mean by that? Profession, is it? I have not
got one. What shall I write? "Write Proprietor, signor." Very well;
but I don't know that I am proprietor of anything except the clothes I
stand up in: even my trunk was borrowed of a friend.) Eighth, Where do
I come from? Ninth, Where am I going to? Tenth, When did I get my
passport? Eleventh, Where did I get my passport? Twelfth, Who gave me
my passport? Was there ever such a monstrous string of questions to
address to a harmless, idle man, who only wants to potter about Italy
quietly in a postchaise! Do they catch Mazzini, landlord, with all
these precautions? No: they only catch _me_. There! there! take your
Travellers' Book back to the police. Surely, such unfounded distrust
of my character as the production of that volume at my dinner-table
implies, forms a serious drawback to the pleasure of travelling in
Austrian Italy. Shall I give up at once all idea of going there, in my
own innocent character, again? No; let me be deliberate in arriving at
a decision,--let me patiently try the experiment of looking at one
more scene from the past.
Black Mirror! how did I travel in Austrian Italy after I had paid my
bill in the morning, and had left my comfortable inn?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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