great throng. Between the promenaders and the side-walks are seated

hundreds and hundreds of people at small tables, smoking and taking

granita, (a first cousin to ice-cream;) on the side-walks are more

employing themselves in the same way. The shops in the first floor of

the tall rows of buildings that wall in three sides of the square are

brilliantly lighted, the air is filled with music and merry voices, and

altogether the scene is as bright and spirited and full of cheerfulness

as any man could desire. We enjoy it thoroughly. Very many of the young

women are exceedingly pretty and dress with rare good taste. We are

gradually and laboriously learning the ill-manners of staring them

unflinchingly in the face--not because such conduct is agreeable to us,

but because it is the custom of the country and they say the girls like

it. We wish to learn all the curious, outlandish ways of all the

different countries, so that we can "show off" and astonish people when

we get home. We wish to excite the envy of our untraveled friends with

our strange foreign fashions which we can't shake off. All our

passengers are paying strict attention to this thing, with the end in

view which I have mentioned. The gentle reader will never, never know

what a consummate ass he can become, until he goes abroad. I speak now,

of course, in the supposition that the gentle reader has not been abroad,

and therefore is not already a consummate ass. If the case be otherwise,

I beg his pardon and extend to him the cordial hand of fellowship and

call him brother. I shall always delight to meet an ass after my own

heart when I shall have finished my travels.

On this subject let me remark that there are Americans abroad in Italy

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The Innocents Abroad