'But before I let you into this secret it is proper that, like a skilful general, I should in my report give a correct description of the localities of the field of battle. The kitchen belonging to my apartments is on the same floor with them, and in this particular the Neapolitan system of domestic architecture is not different from what you may have observed in a set of chambers, or in many old-fashioned mansions in England. Right opposite to the entrance of this kitchen of mine there is an elevated shelf, on which stand (I had better say _stood_) my three wine-bottles, of immense calibre; the first (having been emptied since my stay in the _Infrescata_) then, and now, containing from six to eight gallons of excellent atmospheric air (such as you breathe at this altitude); the second, of similar dimensions, about half full of delicious old _Pozzuoli_ wine; and the third, not less in size, brim-full of the like grape-juice, with its fluid oil-bung floating at the top. 'No sooner did one of the damsels espy the forbidden shelf than the assault thereon was a settled matter: _veni, vidi, bibi_, was the word; and my delicious _Pozzuoli_ wine fell an easy prey to their sacrilegious hands and palate. _Implentur veteris Bacchi_, or, in plain English, mesdames tippled till they had their fill, and what they left was very nearly finished by four or five half-starved footmen and other hall rabble in attendance on their worthy masters; for when Don Michele went into the kitchen he found but a small remnant in one of the bottles, which he secured in his own room.