tongue in despair."

"Indeed they are; and I often told the person who taught me the language--"

"How! did you not learn your own tongue as we all get our native forms of speech, by ear, when a child?" demanded the vice-governatore, his suspicions suddenly revived.

"Without question, Signore, but I speak of books, and of learning to read. When 'big,' 'bag,' 'bog,' bug,' and 'box,'" reading from the paper in a steady voice, and a very tolerable pronunciation, "first came before me, I felt all the embarrassment of which you speak."

"And did you only pronounce these words when first taught to read them?"

This question was awkward to answer; but Vito Viti began to weary of a discourse in which he could take no part, and most opportunely he interposed an objection of his own.

"Signor Barrofaldi," he said, "stick to the lugger. All our motives of suspicion came from Tommaso Tonti, and all of his from the rig of Signor Smees' vessel. If the lugger can be explained, what do we care about bixy, buxy, boxy!"

The vice-governatore was not sorry to get creditably out of the difficulties of the language, and, smiling on his friend, he made a gentle bow of compliance. Then he reflected a moment, in order to plan another mode of proceeding, and pursued the inquiry.

"My neighbor Vito Viti is right," he said, "and we will stick to the lugger. Tommaso Tonti is a mariner of experience, and the oldest pilot of Elba. He tells us that the lugger is a craft much in use among the French, and not at all among the English, so far as he has ever witnessed."

"In that Tommaso Tonti is no seaman. Many luggers are to be found among the English; though more, certainly, among the French. But I have already given the Signor Viti to understand that there is such an island as Guernsey, which was once French, but which is now English, and that accounts for the appearances he has observed. We are Guernsey-men--the lugger is from Guernsey--and, no doubt, we have a Guernsey look. This is being half French, I allow."

"That alters the matter altogether. Neighbor Viti, this is all true about the island, and about its habits and its origin; and if one could be as certain about the names, why, nothing more need be said. Are Giac Smees, and Ving-y-Ving, Guernsey names?"

"They are not particularly so," 

 Prev. P 27/380 next