One man, who evidently had not tasted beer for a long time, went to the Café Specchi, where he asked for a bottle of beer (they are very small); he drank it, paid for it, and called for another. I was not there, but rumour said that he did not get up till he had drank fifty of these little bottles, and had collected quite a crowd around him. One day they were larking about, and they ran away bodily with an old woman's fruit-stall, she following them shrieking. When they had had their fun out of her, they ran back with it, and put it down again, and then gave her two and sixpence. She was so delighted that she wanted them to do it again, and called after them every time they passed, asking them to run away with her stall, like a big child. Another day a lot of them played leap-frog in the Piazza. The Triestines had never seen leap-frog, consequently quite a crowd collected. Once a party of them went into the market, and they each bought one of those large feather kitchen blowers, which they used like fans, and then they came back joining arms and dancing a step all down the street, fanning themselves. All these things "fetched" the Triestines immensely. One day I saw one of them standing by the Austrian Admiral's garden; an apple tree hung over into the road, so he plucked an apple and ate it. He was in the public road, and of course the apple had no business there. Immediately the sentry came out, and a crowd of soldiers and sailors around him were all jabbering at him. He looked at them quietly, and went on munching his apple till they touched him, and then he gave a sort of a quiet, sweeping back-hander, which knocked one or two of them down. I foresaw a row, so I stepped up to him and said, "I am your Consul's wife, and I want to tell you that they are trying to make you understand that those are the Austrian Admiral's apples, and that you must not eat them." So he smiled and said, "I am sure I am exceedingly obliged to you, ma'am. I did not know that there was any reason why I should not eat the apple, and I wondered what they were all jabbering at me for." And he saluted and went. Then I explained to the irritated men that he had not known; that he did not understand a word they said, and that if an apple was in the road, it seemed as if any one might take it, and that he was very sorry that he had not understood. When the Squadron left Trieste, eighteen of them hid, and did not join their ships; and when at last they were caught, and brought off, they said, "It was such a ---- ideal place that they had not really the heart to leave it." I begged Captain Selby so hard not to punish them much. And he said, "Oh no, the darlings! Wait until I get them on board a ship; I'll have them tucked up comfortably in bed with a nice hot grog." We then had a visit from Captain Maude, who had got a little longer leave. We never saw poor Captain Selby again, as he was afterwards murdered. [Sidenote: _We go to Veldes_.]