Turin Must Surely Read A Good Deal, For It Has More
Book-Stores To The Square Rod Than Any Other Town I
Know Of.
And it has its own share of military folk.
The Italian officers' uniforms are very much the most
beautiful I have ever seen; and, as a general thing,
the men in them were as handsome as the clothes.
They were
not large men, but they had fine forms, fine features,
rich olive complexions, and lustrous black eyes.
For several weeks I had been culling all the information
I could about Italy, from tourists. The tourists were
all agreed upon one thing - one must expect to be cheated
at every turn by the Italians. I took an evening walk
in Turin, and presently came across a little Punch and Judy
show in one of the great squares. Twelve or fifteen
people constituted the audience. This miniature theater
was not much bigger than a man's coffin stood on end;
the upper part was open and displayed a tinseled
parlor - a good-sized handkerchief would have answered
for a drop-curtain; the footlights consisted of a couple
of candle-ends an inch long; various manikins the size
of dolls appeared on the stage and made long speeches at
each other, gesticulating a good deal, and they generally
had a fight before they got through. They were worked
by strings from above, and the illusion was not perfect,
for one saw not only the strings but the brawny hand
that manipulated them - and the actors and actresses all
talked in the same voice, too.
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