If ever a man were suited to his place of residence, and his place
of residence to him, the lean Apothecary and Mantua came together
in a perfect fitness of things. It may have been more stirring
then, perhaps. If so, the Apothecary was a man in advance of his
time, and knew what Mantua would be, in eighteen hundred and forty-
four. He fasted much, and that assisted him in his foreknowledge.
I put up at the Hotel of the Golden Lion, and was in my own room
arranging plans with the brave Courier, when there came a modest
little tap at the door, which opened on an outer gallery
surrounding a court-yard; and an intensely shabby little man looked
in, to inquire if the gentleman would have a Cicerone to show the
town. His face was so very wistful and anxious, in the half-opened
doorway, and there was so much poverty expressed in his faded suit
and little pinched hat, and in the thread-bare worsted glove with
which he held it--not expressed the less, because these were
evidently his genteel clothes, hastily slipped on--that I would as
soon have trodden on him as dismissed him. I engaged him on the
instant, and he stepped in directly.
Pages:
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165