on the second floor. Our landlord's family occupied the _primo_. Of
course I could get in at their windows and then go up stairs. And we
had a ladder in the boat; but the mounting to the first floor by this
ladder, placed on the little deck of the boat, as she was rocked by
the torrent, was no easy matter, especially for me, who went first.
Eventually, however, Nicholson and I both entered the window,
hospitably opened to receive us, in safety.

But it was one or two days before the flood subsided sufficiently for
us to be provisioned in any other manner than by the boat; and for
long years afterwards social events were dated in Florence as having
happened "before or after the flood." In those days, and for many days
subsequently to them, Florence did indeed--as I have observed when
speaking of the motives which induced us to settle there--join to its
other attractions that of being an economical place of residence. Our
money consisted of piastres, pauls, and crazie. Eight of the latter
were equal to a paul, ten of which were equivalent to a piastre.
The value of the paul was, as nearly as possible, equal to
fivepence-halfpenny English. The lira--the original representative
of the leading denomination of our own _l.s.d._--no longer existed
in--the flesh I was going to say, but rather in--the metal. And it is
rather curious, that just as the guinea remained, and indeed remains,
a constantly-used term of speech after it has ceased to exist as
current coin, so the scudo remained, in Tuscany, no longer visible or
current, but retained as an integer in accounts of the larger sort. If
you bought or sold house or land, for instance, you talked of scudi.
In more every-day matters piastre or "francesconi" were the integers
used, the latter being only a synonym for the former. And the
proportion in value of the scudo and the piastre was exactly the same
as that of the guinea and the sovereign, the former being worth