Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/1008

936 and when he died, asked that the monarchy would die with him. He never dreamed, nor have his people, that Paul I. was the world's fool.

"A republic now?" my rescuer finished. "Nonsense! All newspaper talk to make the story good. Not one of them would know a poll if he saw it. Exempt from taxation, perhaps, because there is nothing to tax beyond the lobsters, which you may be sure are levied on. Try them some day at the Caffe Roma in the Corso. Beyond that export, it is a miserable land of rocks."

"And wild goats," I added, musingly.

The moon was shining as we came out on deck, lighting up the English fleet at anchor a few miles away. The cruisers made a splendid picture, with the silver flood for a foreground, while behind them, bigger than the rock of Gibraltar, rose Tavolara.