lying at full length upon a table under the veranda. Next day,
however, all had become normal again.

Among our fellow-guests during this visit was a fiery-faced
eructive butcher from Turin. A difference of opinion having arisen
between him and his wife, I told the Signora that I would rather be
wrong with her than right with her husband. The lady was
delighted.

"Do you hear that, my dear?" said she. "He says he had rather be
wrong with me than right with you. Isn't he a naughty man?"

She said that if she died her husband was going to marry a girl of
fifteen. I said: "And if your husband dies, ma'am, send me a
dispatch to London, and I will come and marry you myself." They
were both delighted at this.

She told us the thunder had upset her and frightened her.

"Has it given you a headache?"

She replied: No; but it had upset her stomach. No doubt the
thunder had shaken her stomach's confidence in the soundness of its
opinions, so as to weaken its proselytising power. By and by,
seeing that she ate a pretty good dinner, I inquired:

"Is your stomach better now, ma'am?"

And she said it was. Next day my stomach was bad too.