He knew all
about him, he said. In proof of it, he connected him with every
possible topic, from the Monte Pulciano wine at dinner (which was
grown on an estate he had owned), to the big bed itself, which was
the very model of his. When I left the inn, he coupled with his
final bow in the yard, a parting assurance that the road by which I
was going, had been Milor Beeron's favourite ride; and before the
horse's feet had well begun to clatter on the pavement, he ran
briskly up-stairs again, I dare say to tell some other Englishman
in some other solitary room that the guest who had just departed
was Lord Beeron's living image.
I had entered Bologna by night--almost midnight--and all along the
road thither, after our entrance into the Papal territory: which
is not, in any part, supremely well governed, Saint Peter's keys
being rather rusty now; the driver had so worried about the danger
of robbers in travelling after dark, and had so infected the brave
Courier, and the two had been so constantly stopping and getting up
and down to look after a portmanteau which was tied on behind, that
I should have felt almost obliged to any one who would have had the
goodness to take it away.
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