It Was At The New Hotel Which Is Evolving Itself Through The Repair Of
The Never-Finished And Long-Ruined Palace Of Donn' Anna, Wife Of A
Spanish Viceroy In The Seventeenth Century, That Our Guide Stopped With
Us For That Cup Of Tea Already Mentioned.
We had to climb four nights of
stairs for it to the magnificent salon overlooking the finest
postal-card prospect in all Naples.
We lingered long upon it, in the
balcony from which we could have dropped into the sunset sea any coin
which we could have brought ourselves to part with; but we had none of
the bad money which had been so easily passed off upon us. This sort
rather abounds in Naples, and the traveller should watch not only for
false francs, but for francs of an obsolete coinage which you can know
by the king's head having a longer neck than in the current pieces. At
the bookseller's they would not take a perfectly good five-franc piece
because it was so old as 1815; and what becomes of all the bad money one
innocently takes for good? One fraudulent franc I made a virtue of
throwing away; but I do not know what I did with a copper refused by a
trolley conductor as counterfeit. I could not take the affair seriously,
and perhaps I gave that copper in charity.
As we drove hotehvard through the pink twilight we met many carriages of
people who looked rich and noble, but whether they were so I do not
know.
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