We had our landlord's company at supper, and had learned from
him that the most eminent of American financiers, who shall not
otherwise be identified here, was in the habit, when coming to Leghorn,
of letting him know that he was bringing a party of friends, and
commanding of him a banquet such as he alone knew how to furnish a
millionaire of that princely quality. After that we were not so much
surprised as grieved to find that our elderly chambermaid had profited
by our absence to gather all the coals out of our one stove into two
_scaldini,_ which were bristling before her where she knelt when we
opened the door upon her. She apologized, but still she carried away the
coals, and we were left to rekindle the zeal of our stove as best we
could. It was not a large stove, and it seemed to feel its inadequacy to
the office of taking the chill off that vast, dim room, where it
cowered, dark and low upon the floor, with a yearning, upward stretch of
its pipe lost in space before it reached the lowermost goddess in the
allegory frescoed on the ceiling.
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