adversary at law?"

"To which one of them?"

"Oh, Signor M----, the timber merchant."

"_L'abbiamo mangiato!_" (I have eaten him.)

Beware of the fat Neapolitan. He is fat from prosperity, from, dining
off his leaner brothers.

Which reminds me of a supremely important subject, eating.

The feeding here is saner than ours with its all-pervading animal grease
(even a boiled egg tastes of mutton fat in England), its stock-pot,
suet, and those other inventions of the devil whose awful effects we
only survive because we are continually counteracting or eliminating
them by the help of (1) pills, (2) athletics, and (3) alcohol. Saner as
regards material, but hopelessly irrational in method. Your ordinary
employe begins his day with a thimbleful of black coffee, nothing more.
What work shall be got out of him under such anti-hygienic conditions?
Of course it takes ten men to do the work of one; and of course all ten
of them are sulky and irritable throughout the morning, thinking only of
their luncheon. Then indeed--then they make up for lost time; those few
favoured ones, at least, who can afford it.

I once watched a young fellow, a clerk of some kind, in a restaurant at
midday. He began by informing the waiter that he had no appetite that
morning--_sangue di Dio!_ no appetite whatever; but at last allowed
himself to be persuaded into consuming a _hors d' oeuvres_ of anchovies