Will and I were of his party--Will was in his own coach: his touch soothed the Admiral more than any in the ship, though it was not to be in requisition so much thereafter. I was to do kind of orderly's work, which would in ordinary cases be performed by some one before the mast; but the Admiral, with the kindness which never failed, judged that Will, being away from the ship, would like to have a mate, and that I should serve best. The palace was hardly like the generality of palaces of that date, for the great state staircase of red marble which conducted to the principal rooms--they, as is the wont in Italy, being on the first floor and not level with the ground as in England--was inside the palace instead of winding round the courtyard outside the inner face of the quadrangle. Perhaps I should hardly call the palace a quadrangle, for on the bottom, or sea-side, the buildings were only the height of a garden wall, and used, I think, for horses. The stables were certainly under the palace on this and the adjoining side towards the town. The Ambassador's palace, I should have said, was on the outskirts of the town, at the bottom end of the Strada S. Caterina and just against the King's Villa, which was not a house as it would sound to our English ears, but a garden with palm trees, and avenues of the ilex, and with many statues of white marble, running along the sea-shore between the city and Mergellina. We were on a little hill, which I could see pleased the Admiral greatly, for a faint smile came over his face. This was one of his worst days.