knew were being thrummed by Italian fingers. He pushed the swing door
and at once found himself in a room which seemed redolent of the country
which everyone loves.

It was a narrow room, with a sanded floor and the usual small tables.
The walls were painted with volcanic pictures in which Vesuvius played a
principal part. Vesuvius erupted on one wall, slept in the moonlight on
another, at the end of the room was decked out in all the glories of an
extremely Neapolitan sunset. Upon the ceiling was Capri, stretching
out from an azure sea. For the moment the guitars had ceased, but their
players, swarthy, velvet eyed, and unmistakable children of Italy, sat
at ease, their instruments still held in brown hands ready for further
plucking of the sonorous strings. And the room was alive with the uproar
of Italian voices talking their native language, with the large and
unselfconscious gestures of Italian hands, with the movement of Italian
heads, with the flash and sparkle of animated Italian eyes. Chianti was
being drunk; macaroni, minestra, gnocchi, ravioli, alaione were being
eaten; here and there Toscanas were being smoked. Italy was in the warm
air, and in an instant from Craven's consciousness London was blotted
out.

For a moment he stood just inside the door feeling almost confused.
Opposite to him was the padrona, a large and lustrous woman with sleepy,
ox-like eyes, sitting behind a sort of counter. Italian girls, with
coal-black hair, slipped deftly to and fro among the tables serving
the customers. The musicians stared at Craven with the fixed, unwinking
definiteness which the traveller from England begins to meet with soon
after he passes Lugano. Where was a table for an Englishman?

"Ecco, signorino!"