'The composer of letters was just receiving from an elderly woman the sum of six _grani_ (about threepence) for an epistle he had indited to her son at _Bari_; after which a farmer, next in rotation, was admitted into presence. His business appeared to be on secret service, for the corresponding oracle politely requested some of the more curious auditors to step a little aside. At first, indeed, the farmer's instructions were conveyed in a whisper; but as a Neapolitan loves dearly to talk as loud as his lungs will let him, and to accompany his sermocinations with the most expressive gestures, it soon became less difficult to discover that the subject under present consideration was a horse which had been sold to a cavalry officer, and for which a balance was still owing; the prompt payment whereof was to be peremptorily insisted on by a respectful dun. As soon as a period was happily brought to paper, it was read over to the listening clodhopper, who, in a manner, beat time to the emphatic and rhythmical reading of the professor by periodical nods of the head, and at the end of the sentence expressed his astonishment at the sagacity with which his obscure ideas had been caught up and classified. This literary production, owing probably to the importance of the subject, was disposed of for the valuable consideration of eight _grani_ (fourpence), paper included; and its possessor, with inward satisfaction, left the oracular tripod, in order to make room for a Turkish captain of a _polacca_, whose literary necessities consisted in a memorial claiming the restitution of some goods illegally seized.... When the document was ready for signature, _Ibrahim Reis_, who could neither read nor write, was desired to make his _cross_ at foot, which he refused with religious abhorrence; but, dipping his little finger into the inkstand, imprinted on the paper a correct facsimile of the tortuous furrows of his cuticle by way of signet. To my great surprise, this state paper was valued at no more than one carlin (fivepence), although engrossed on a folio page and decorated with some fancifully flourished initials. [Illustration: THE LETTER-WRITER.]