'Thunder and lightning!' said the German, warming, 'when a certain
man is coming to see you, unexpectedly; and, without his own
knowledge, sends some invisible messenger, to put the idea of him
into your head all day, what do you call that? When you walk along
a crowded street - at Frankfort, Milan, London, Paris - and think
that a passing stranger is like your friend Heinrich, and then that
another passing stranger is like your friend Heinrich, and so begin
to have a strange foreknowledge that presently you'll meet your
friend Heinrich - which you do, though you believed him at Trieste
- what do you call THAT?'

'It's not uncommon, either,' murmured the Swiss and the other
three.

'Uncommon!' said the German. 'It's as common as cherries in the
Black Forest. It's as common as maccaroni at Naples. And Naples
reminds me! When the old Marchesa Senzanima shrieks at a card-
party on the Chiaja - as I heard and saw her, for it happened in a
Bavarian family of mine, and I was overlooking the service that
evening - I say, when the old Marchesa starts up at the card-table,
white through her rouge, and cries, "My sister in Spain is dead! I
felt her cold touch on my back!" - and when that sister IS dead at
the moment - what do you call that?'

'Or when the blood of San Gennaro liquefies at the request of the
clergy - as all the world knows that it does regularly once a-year,
in my native city,' said the Neapolitan courier after a pause, with
a comical look, 'what do you call that?'