“Off to the devil! You know I have no money.” “Idiot! Can’t we lend you some? Come, Dantan, help me to heave him up or we shall get no sense out of him. There you are! Brush him down a bit. Now be off and get a month’s leave from Monsieur Horace.” And I went. What shall I say of Naples? Clear bright sky, fecund earth, dazzling sunlight! So many have described this lovely land that I need not do it again. I wandered in the grounds of the Villa Reale, pondering on the woes of Tasso, and rowed to Nisita to watch the sun go down behind Capo Miseno to the accompaniment of the thousand minor chords of the rippling sea. As I stood, a soldier, who spoke very fair French, came up and offered to show me the curiosities of the island. I accepted gratefully, and after an hour’s stroll together I took out my purse. Drawing back, he put my hand aside, saying: “Monsieur, I want nothing. I ask nothing but--but--that you will pray God for me.” “Indeed I will,” I said; “it’s an odd notion, but I will do it.” And that night I seriously did say a Paternoster for him after I got to bed. I was beginning a second when I went into fits of laughter. So I am afraid that, as far as my intervention is concerned, the poor man is still a plain sergeant. Next day the wind had freshened, and our passage back was stormy. However, we landed at last, and my sailors, overjoyed at the thirty francs I had promised them, insisted on my dining with them. They were such ruffianly-looking creatures that, when they led me through a lonely poplar wood, I began to doubt them, poor lazzaroni! However, we soon came to a cottage where my amphitryons gave orders for the feast--a mountain of macaroni, into which I plunged my hand with them; a great pot of Posilippo wine, from which we drank in turn--I after a toothless old man, the eldest of the family, for, with these good fellows, respect for age comes before even courtesy to guests. Then the old man began discussing politics, and talking of King Joachim, who was very near his heart, until he got so deeply affected that, to turn his thoughts, his children made him tell me of a long and dangerous voyage he had once made when, after _three days and two nights_ at sea, he had been thrown on a far-off island which the aborigines called Elba, and where it was rumoured Napoleon had once been kept prisoner. Of course I sympathised, and congratulated the old man on his wonderful escape. The young men were greatly delighted at my interest and attention; they whispered together, there was a mysterious hurrying to and fro, and I gathered that some surprise was in store. As I rose to leave, the tallest of the lazzaroni, with shy politeness, begged me to accept a present, the best they had to offer, calculated to make the most callous of men weep. It was a gigantic--onion! which I received with modest dignity worthy of the occasion, and which I carried off in triumph, after a thousand vows of eternal friendship.