Between Rome and Florence, our train stopped at a small way station
in the mountains.
As soon as the little locomotive had panted
itself to a standstill the train hands, following their habit,
piled off the cars and engaged in a tremendous confab with the
assembled officials on the platform. Immediately all the loafers
in sight drew cards. A drowsy hillsman, muffled to his back hair
in a long brown cloak, and with buskins on his legs such as a stage
bandit wears, was dozing against the wall. He looked as though
he had stepped right out of a comic opera to add picturesqueness
to the scene. He roused himself and joined in; so did a bearded
party who, to judge by his uniform, was either a Knight of Pythias
or a general in the army; so did all the rest of the crowd. In
ten seconds they were jammed together in a hard knot, and going
it on the high speed with the muffler off, fine white teeth shining,
arms flying, shoulders shrugging, spinal columns writhing, mustaches
rising and falling, legs wriggling, scalps and ears following suit.
Feeding hour in the parrot cage at the zoo never produced anything
like so noisy and animated a scene. In these parts acute hysteria
is not a symptom; it is merely a state of mind.
A waiter in soiled habiliments hurried up, abandoning chances of
trade at the prospect of something infinitely more exciting. He
wanted to stick his oar into the argument.
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