would be intolerable elsewhere; but I confess to feeling rather
hopeless of being able to describe what I actually saw without
giving a wrong impression concerning it.

Among the visitors was the head confidential clerk of a well-known
Milanese house, with his wife and sister. The sister was an
invalid, and so also was the husband, but the wife was a very
pretty woman and a very merry one. The waiter was a good-looking
young fellow of about five-and-twenty, and between him and Signora
Bonvicino--for we will say this was the clerk's name--there sprang
up a violent flirtation, all open and above board. The waiter was
evidently very fond of her, but said the most atrociously impudent
things to her from time to time. Dining under the veranda at the
next table I heard the Signora complain that the cutlets were
burnt. So they were--very badly burnt. The waiter looked at them
for a moment--threw her a contemptuous glance, clearly intended to
provoke war--"Chi non ha appetito {17} . . . " he exclaimed, and
was moving off with a shrug of the shoulders. The Signora
recognising a challenge, rose instantly from the table, and
catching him by the nape of his neck, kicked him deftly downstairs
into the kitchen, both laughing heartily, and the husband and
sister joining. I never saw anything more neatly done. Of course,
in a few minutes some fresh and quite unexceptionable cutlets made
their appearance.

Another morning, when I came down to breakfast, I found an
altercation going on between the same pair as to whether the lady's
nose was too large or not. It was not at all too large. It was a
very pretty little nose. The waiter was maintaining that it was
too large, and the lady that it was not.