inquiring into the history of his predecessors, he heard that they
were one and all hard to find; and he relates that on the steamer,
going over, there was a low fellow who set the table in a roar by a
vulgar anecdote to this effect:--

"There was once a consul at ----, who indicated his office-hours by
the legend on his door, 'In from ten to one.' An old ship-captain,
who kept coming for about a week without finding the Consul, at last
furiously wrote, in the terms of wager, under this legend, 'Ten to one
you're out!'"

My friend also states that one day a visitor of his remarked: "I'm
rather surprised to find you in. As a general rule, I never do find
consuls in." Habitually, his fellow-countrymen entertained him with
accounts of their misadventures in reaching him. It was useless to
represent to them that his house was in the most convenient locality
in ----, where, indeed, no stranger can walk twenty rods from his
hotel without losing himself; that their guide was an ass, or their
courier a rogue. They listened to him politely, but they never
pardoned him in the least; and neither will I forgive the Consul at
Genoa. I had no earthly consular business with him, but a private
favor to ask. It was Sunday, and I could not reasonably expect to find
him at his office, or any body to tell me where he lived; but I have
seldom had so keen a sense of personal wrong and national neglect as
in my search for that Consul's house.

In Italy there is no species of fact with which any human being you
meet will not pretend to have perfect acquaintance, and, of course,
the driver whose fiacre we took professed himself a complete guide to
the Consul's whereabouts, and took us successively to the residences