"You might have given me the tip," Merrihew grumbled across to Hillard. He viewed the halfburnt perfecto ruefully and filliped it through the window. "How should I know smoking was prohibited?" "You had your joke; this is mine. Besides, I remained silent to the advantage of your future education. The conductor has spoken to you in four languages--Italian, French, German and Dutch." Hillard then spoke to the conductor. "May not my friend smoke so long as ladies do not enter?" "Certainly, since it does not annoy you." Then the conductor bowed and disappeared into the next compartment. Merrihew inscribed on the back of an envelope, for future reference, the four phrases, and in ten minutes had, with the assistance of his preceptor, mastered their pronunciations. "I wish I had been born a hotel concierge," he said mournfully. "They speak all languages, and the Lord knows where they find the time to learn them." "The Englishman, the Parisian and the American are the poorest linguists," said Hillard. "They are altogether too well satisfied with themselves and their environments to bother learning any language but their own, and most Americans do not take the trouble to do that." "Hear, hear!" "It is because I am a good patriot that I complain," said Hillard. "I love my country, big, healthy and strong as it is; but I wish my people would brush up their learning, so that these foreigners would have less right to make sport of us." "There's some truth in what you say. But we are young, and going ahead all the time." Soon the train began to lift into the mountains, the beautiful Apennines, and Merrihew counted so many tunnels he concluded that this was where the inventor of the cinematograph got his idea. Just as some magnificent valley began to unfold, with a roar the train dashed into a dank, sooty tunnel. One could neither read nor enjoy the scenery; nothing to do but sit tight and wait, let the window down when they passed a tunnel, lift it when they entered one. By the time they arrived in Genoa, late at night, both compared favorably with the coalers in the harbor of Naples. The English and American tourists have done much toward making Italy a soap-and-water tolerating country (loving would be misapplied). But in Italy the State owns the railroads. There is water (of a kind), but never soap or towels.