Few people
lounge in the barbers' shops; though they are very numerous, as
hardly any man shaves himself. But the apothecary's has its group
of loungers, who sit back among the bottles, with their hands
folded over the tops of their sticks. So still and quiet, that
either you don't see them in the darkened shop, or mistake them--as
I did one ghostly man in bottle-green, one day, with a hat like a
stopper--for Horse Medicine.
On a summer evening the Genoese are as fond of putting themselves,
as their ancestors were of putting houses, in every available inch
of space in and about the town. In all the lanes and alleys, and
up every little ascent, and on every dwarf wall, and on every
flight of steps, they cluster like bees. Meanwhile (and especially
on festa-days) the bells of the churches ring incessantly; not in
peals, or any known form of sound, but in a horrible, irregular,
jerking, dingle, dingle, dingle: with a sudden stop at every
fifteenth dingle or so, which is maddening. This performance is
usually achieved by a boy up in the steeple, who takes hold of the
clapper, or a little rope attached to it, and tries to dingle
louder than every other boy similarly employed.
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