"Yes, they would, signore," responded the thin-faced old fellow with a
grin, as he twisted his fierce gray mustache. Francesco Carducci was a
well-known character in Leghorn; interpreter to the Consulate, and
keeper of a sailor's home, an honest, good-hearted, easy-going fellow,
who for twenty years had occupied the same position under half a dozen
different Consuls. At that moment, however, there came from the outer
office a long-drawn moan.

"Hulloa, what's that?" I enquired, startled.

"Only a mad stoker off the _Oleander_, signore. The captain has brought
him for you to see. They want to send him back to his friends at
Newcastle."

"Oh! a case of madness!" I exclaimed. "Better get Doctor Ridolfi to see
him. I'm not an expert on mental diseases."

My old friend Frank Hutcheson, His Britannic Majesty's Vice-Consul at
the port of Leghorn, was away on leave in England, his duties being
relegated to young Bertram Cavendish, the pro-Consul. The latter,
however, had gone down with a bad touch of malaria which he had picked
up in the deadly Maremma, and I, as the only other Englishman in
Leghorn, had been asked by the Consul-General in Florence to act as
pro-Consul until Hutcheson's return.

It was in mid-July, and the weather was blazing in the glaring
sun-blanched Mediterranean town. If you know Leghorn, you probably know
the Consulate with its black and yellow escutcheon outside, a large,
handsome suite of huge, airy offices facing the cathedral, and