Royalty left the pier. It was, presumably, going to have lunch before it admired Naples. That was certainly as well; it gave the representatives of the Press a respite, during which they, too, if they had the inclination and the wherewithal, might have lunch. The representative of the _Marchese Peppino_ sat down on an inverted basket and continued to record impressions, while the crowd thinned slowly. A facetious young man, passing the artist, made a show of being doubled up with helpless laughter--a mirth presumably anticipatory in nature and complimentary of intent. When he wearied of the compliment he clapped the journalist on the shoulder and observed: 'We shall split our sides on Thursday, ne?' He cherished an immense admiration for the pictorial staff of the _Marchese Peppino_. The staff gave him his usual melancholy look from under quick brows, and said: 'Have you seen my sister?' 'Just now, talking over there with La Corrini.' From the group indicated by the jerked thumb the staff's sister emerged. She strolled up to her brother. There did not seem to be any particular difference between them, externally. The boy might have been twenty-three and the girl twenty-two; or it was quite equally likely to be the other way about. At first glance there seemed to be a certain resemblance between them in dress as well as in face; analysis, however, reduced this to the suggestion in each of an untidiness--one might all but say a disreputability--that made their worldly status a matter for speculation. The girl's hat was of broken straw, pulled over her eyes; one of her shoes lacked a lace; her blue cotton dress was sun-bleached and discoloured. The boy wore a ragged blazer, frayed flannel trousers, and a very limp Panama hat, which he kept turning up, with sweet-tempered patience, when it flopped over his eyes. The girl sat down beside her brother. She had--they both had--a serene air of being admirably content to do nothing during prolonged periods. To sit by the harbour and talk, if the day were fine and the company agreeable, was an excellent afternoon's occupation. The streets were always entertaining, and the harbour particularly so, with the thronging of those who go down to the sea in ships, and the gay greetings of friends, and the cheerful shouting of mariners. Neapolitan loafers (and really to loaf, in the highest sense of that agreeable word, one should go to Naples) always like the harbour. The smell of the sea, too, is pleasant on a hot September afternoon, especially to the unfastidious, who do not cavil at its dilution with various other odours.