"That will be his bedroom, I suppose," said the stranger, indicating a

door which the boy had passed through.

"No, sir, his sitting-room. That is where he receives his colleagues in

Parliament, and his fellow-journalists, and his electors and printers

and so forth. Come in, sir."

The walls were covered with portraits of Mazzini, Garibaldi, Kossuth,

Lincoln, Washington, and Cromwell, and the room, which had been

furnished originally with chairs covered in chintz, was loaded with

incongruous furniture.

"Joseph, you've been naughty again! My little boy is all for being a

porter, sir. He has got the butt-end of his father's fishing-rod, you

see, and torn his handkerchief into shreds to make a tassel for his

mace." Then with a sweep of the arm, "All presents, sir. He gets

presents from all parts of the world. The piano is from England, but

nobody plays, so it is never opened; the books are from Germany, and the

bronze is from France, but the strangest thing of all, sir, is this."

"A phonograph?"

"It was most extraordinary. A week ago a cylinder came from the island

of Elba."

"Elba? From some prisoner, perhaps?"

"'A dying man's message,' Mr. Rossi called it. 'We must save up for an

instrument to reproduce it, Sister,' he said. But, look you, the very

next day the carriers brought the phonograph."

"And then he reproduced the message?"

"I don't know--I never asked. He often turns on a cylinder to amuse the

boy, but I never knew him try that one. This is the bedroom, sir; you

may come in."

It was a narrow room, very bright and lightsome, with its white

counterpane, white bed curtains, and white veil over the looking-glass

to keep it from the flies.

"How sweet!" said the stranger.

"It would be but for these," said the woman, and she pointed to the

other end of the room, where a desk stood between two windows, amid

heaps of unopened newspapers, which lay like fishes as they fall from

the herring net.

"I presume this is a present also?" said the stranger. He had taken from

the desk a dagger with a lapis-lazuli handle, and was trying its edge on

his finger-nail.

"Yes, sir, and he has turned it to account as a paper-knife. A

six-chamber revolver came yesterday, but he had no use for that, so he

threw it aside, and it lies under the newspapers."

"And who is this?" said the stranger. He was looking at a faded picture

in an ebony frame which hung by the side of the bed. It was the portrait

of an old man with a beautiful forehead and a patriarchal face.




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