"We want to go to a hotel."

The man paid no attention.

"Ask him how much he charges, Uncle. You know you mustn't take a cab in
Naples without bargaining."

"Why not?"

"The driver will swindle you."

"I'll risk that," he answered. "Just now we're lucky if we get a
carriage at all." He reached up and prodded the jehu in the ribs with
his cane. "How much to the Hotel Vesuvius?" he demanded, loudly.

The man woke up and flourished his whip, at the same time bursting into
a flood of Italian.

The girls listened carefully. They had been trying to study Italian
from a small book Beth had bought entitled "Italian in Three Weeks
without a Master," but not a word the driver of the carriage said seemed
to have occurred in the vocabulary of the book. He repeated "Vesuvio"
many times, however, with scornful, angry or imploring intonations, and
Louise finally said:

"He thinks you want to go to the volcano, Uncle. The hotel is the
Vesuve, not the Vesuvius."

"What's the difference?"