At Genoa he found the omnibuses of the principal hotels drawn up outside the station; he went straight up to one of the most comfortable-looking, without letting himself be intimidated by the haughtiness of the hotel servant, who seized hold of his miserable portmanteau; but Amédée refused to be parted from it; he would not allow it to be put on the roof of the carriage, but insisted that it should be placed next him--there--on the same seat. In the hall of the hotel the porter put him at his ease by talking French; then he let himself go and, not content with asking for “a very good room,” inquired the prices of those that were offered him, determined to find nothing to his liking for less than twelve francs. The seventeen-franc room which he settled on after looking at several, was vast, clean, and elegant without ostentation; the bed stood out from the wall--a bright brass bed, which was certainly uninhabited, and to which his precautions would have been an insult. The washstand was concealed in a kind of enormous cupboard. Two large windows opened on to a garden; Amédée leant out into the night and gazed long at the indistinct mass of sombre foliage, letting the cool air calm his fever and invite him to sleep. From above the bed there hung down a cloudy veil of tulle, which exactly draped three sides of it, and which was looped up in a graceful festoon on the fourth by a few little cords, like those that take in the reefs of a sail. Fleurissoire recognised that this was what is known as a mosquito net--a device which he had always disdained to make use of. After having washed, he stretched himself luxuriously in the cool sheets. He left the window open--not wide open, of course, for fear of cold in the head and ophthalmia, but with one side fixed in such a way as to prevent the night effluvia from striking him directly; did his accounts, said his prayers and put out the light. (This was electric and the current was cut off by turning down a switch.) * * * * *