You dare not stir? Perhaps you are in the
right. I shall go and fraternize, and bring you reports.
* * * *
He has been, at all events, 'up the Straits' as the Mediterranean
voyage is called here, and seen 'Palermy' and the Sicilians. But,
for his imagination, what seems to have struck it most was that it
was a 'fine place for Jack, for a man could get mools there for a
matter of three-halfpence a-day.'
'And was that all you got out of him?' asked Claude, sickly and
sulkily.
'Oh, you must not forget the halo of glory and excitement which in a
sailor's eyes surrounds the delights of horseback. But he gave me
besides a long glowing account of the catechism which they had there,
three-quarters of a mile long.'
'Pope Pius's catechism, I suppose?'
So thought I, at first; but it appeared that all the dead of the city
were arranged therein, dried and dressed out in their finest clothes,
'every sect and age,' as Tom said, 'by itself; as natural as life!'
We may hence opine that he means some catacombs or other.
Poor Claude could not even get up a smile: but his sorrows were
coming swiftly to an end.
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