clearing his throat by a slight effort; "we always call our
family 'Smeet.'"

"And the name of your lugger, Signor Capitano Smeet?" suspending his pen
over the paper in expectation of the answer.

"Ze Ving-and-Ving"; pronouncing the _w's_ in a very different way from
what they had been sounded in answering the hails.

"Ze Ving-y-Ving," repeated Signor Barrofaldi, writing the name in a
manner to show it was not the first time he had heard it; "ze
Ving-y-Ving; that is a poetical appellation, Signor Capitano; may I
presume to ask what it signifies?"

"_Ala e ala_, in your Italian, _Mister_ Vice-governatore. When a craft
like mine has a sail spread on each side, resembling a bird, we say, in
English, that she marches 'Ving-and-Ving,'"

Andrea Barrofaldi mused, in silence, near a minute. During this
interval, he was thinking of the improbability of any but a bonâ-fide
Englishman's dreaming of giving a vessel an appellation so thoroughly
idiomatic, and was fast mystifying himself, as so often happens by tyros
in any particular branch of knowledge, by his own critical acumen. Then
he half whispered a conjecture on the subject to Vito Viti, influenced
quite as much by a desire to show his neighbor his own readiness in such
matters, as by any other feeling. The podestà was less struck by the
distinction than his superior; but, as became one of his limited means,
he did not venture an objection.

"Signor Capitano," resumed Andrea Barrofaldi, "since when have you