V

POMPEII REVISITED


Because I felt very happy in going back to Pompeii after a generation,
and being alive to do so in the body, I resolved to behave handsomely by
the cabman who drove me from my hotel to the station. I said to myself
that I would do something that would surprise him, and I gave him his
fee and nearly a franc over; but it was I who was surprised, for he ran
after me into the station, as I supposed, to extort more. He was holding
out a franc toward me, and I asked the guide who was bothering me to
take him to Pompeii (where there are swarms of guides always on the
grounds) what the matter was. "It is false," he explained, and this
proved true, though whether the franc was the one I had given the driver
or whether it was one which he had thoughtfully substituted for it to
make good an earlier loss I shall now never know. I put it into my
pocket, wondering what I should do with it; the question what you shall
do with counterfeit money in Italy is one which is apt to recur as I
have hinted, and in despair of solving it at the moment I threw the
false franc out of the car-window; it was the false franc I have already
boasted of throwing away.

This was, of course, after I got into the car, and after I had suffered
another wrong, and was resolved at least to be good myself. I had taken
first-class tickets, but, when we had followed several conductors up and