Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/456

418

EW tourists go to Brescia. Personally I know of only two Anglo- Saxons, besides myself, who have visited the place. One was the late Mr. Augustus Hare, who went to Brescia with his prolific scissors in his hand, intending to write up the place elaborately. But he probably met with no person of title in Brescia, and therefore he recorded his impression that there was very little to see in the place. The other Anglo-Saxon was an American whom I met at the Brescia station.

I had just descended from the Milan train, when I saw a tall, gaunt American, wearing a travelling-cap, and leaning in a limp and despairing attitude against the station wall. In front of him stood subdued and apologetic porters, with the American's hand-luggage, humbly suggesting in their native tongue that the traveller should see the station-master. Suddenly, and with a fierce gesture, the American exclaimed: "I ain't talking about that! I'm talking about a hat, a hat, a hat!"

Yielding to a weak impulse to do a kind action, I approached my fellow countryman and asked if I could be of any assistance to him. He looked at me as if I were speaking some unknown language, and made no reply. With the conviction that I had been served as I deserved for interfering with another traveller's concerns, I turned away; but before I had emerged from the station I felt a strong grasp on my arm, and heard a repentant voice saying: "Guess I was a little rude just now, but I've lost a first-class New York hat, and I was considerable mad. Thank you all the same for your politeness."

"You left the hat in the train, I presume," said I.

"Just so," he replied. "You see, I'm travelling with a friend, and we came from Venice this morning. I wanted to get out here and see them make carpets, but my friend wouldn't stop. So, being a little mad at him, I let him go on to Milan alone, and got out in a hurry and forgot my hat. That porter kept jabbering at me till I was ready to kill him. It's a shame that they don't have men on these Eyetalian railroads that can speak a decent language."

"I was not aware that they made carpets in Brescia," I remarked.

"They make Brussels carpets here, don't they?" asked the American. "I always thought that Brussels carpets came from Brussels, and having a brother in the carpet trade, I felt some interested in the matter."

"But this isn't Brussels," said I. "It is Brescia."

"My friend told me this was Brussels, only the natives called it Brushia, just as they miscall all their towns. A nation that don't know the proper names of its towns don't amount to much, in my opinion. My friend knows Europe down to the ground. He's in the elevator business, and he ought to know whether this is Brussels or not."

I could not quite see how familiarity with the elevator business made a man an authority in geography, but I did not say so. "Your friend," I remarked, gently, "was not quite right in this instance. Brussels is at least eight hundred miles from here. However, now that you are here, you had better come with me and have a look at Brescia."

"All right," he replied. "I've got to get rid of the time somehow, and I'm used to disappointments since I came to Italy. I haven't seen anything yet that hasn't disappointed me,—except the beer in Venice, and that don't come up to the Milwaukee standard."

So we took a carriage and drove for the next three hours through Brescia, stopping at churches and other buildings of interest. My companion strongly resented the fact that Brescia was not