or hot butter, with butter visible or invisible:--be as capricious in
your orders as you like, and never fear tiring the waiter. Proteus
himself never took so many shapes.

There is some speciousness in my Genoese friend's argument. The
_Superba_, naturally enough, cannot forget that she was first and is
now second. Turin, on her side, does not intend to have her official
supremacy disputed. No wonder that the two noble cities should look at
each other rather surlily, and stick to their own individuality. "Hence
it is," concludes my friend, "that the comparatively easy Apennines have
proved to this day an impassable barrier to the buttered toast on one
side, and to the _grisini_ on the other."

"But not so to the white truffle," I put in, triumphantly. "The Genoese
have adopted that; and honor to them for having done so! What do you say
to this, eh?"

My friend scratched his head in quest of a new argument. We will leave
him to his embarrassment, and have done with this string of digressions.

I was saying, that my first visit to Turin dated as far back as 1831. On
that journey I had a singular travelling-companion, a beautiful fish,
a John Dory, carefully wrapped up, and neatly laid in a wicker-basket,
like a babe in its cradle. The officers of the _octroi_, who examined my
basket, complimented me on my choice,--nay, grew so enthusiastic about
my John Dory, that, if I remember right, they let it pass duty-free.
The mistress of the house, at whose table it was served, paid it a
well-deserved tribute of admiration, but lamented the unskilfulness of
the hand which had cleaned it: "How stupid to cut it to the very throat!
See what a gap!" I laughed in my sleeve and held my tongue. It was a