Therefore, from a dozen different recollections of Naples, eleven of which you may read in your red-covered Baedeker, or Recollections of Italy, or Leaves from my Note-Book, or Memories of Blissful Hours, and similar productions, I have most poignantly to remember our shopping experiences in Naples.  But before launching my battleship I owe an apology to the worshippers of Italy.  I can appreciate their rapturous memories.  I share in a measure their enthusiasm.  To a certain temper Italy would be adorable for a honeymoon or to return to a second or a fifth time.  But it is not in human nature, after having come from Russia, Egypt, and Greece, to have one’s pristine enthusiasm to pour out in torrents over the ladylike beauty of Italy, because these other countries are so much more unfrequented, more pagan, and more fascinating.  But in daring to say that, I again pull my forelock to Italy’s worshippers.

To begin with, we were robbed all through Italy; not robbed in a common way, but, to the honor of the Italians let me say, robbed in a highly interesting and somewhat exciting manner.

Somebody has said, “What a beautiful country Italy would be if it were not for the Italians!” We are used to having our things stolen, and to being overcharged for everything just because we are Americans, but we are not used to the utter brigandage of Italy.  On the Russian ship coming from Odessa to Constantinople some of the second-cabin passengers got into our state-rooms during dinner and went through our hand-baggage, which we had left unlocked, and stole my ulster.  And, of course, in Constantinople they warned us not to trust the Greeks, for it is their form of comparison to say, “He lies like a Greek,” while in Greece the worst thing they can say is that “He steals like a Turk.”  In Cairo it was not necessary to warn us, for everybody knows what liars and thieves Arabs are.  Not a day went by on those donkey excursions on the Nile that the men did not have their pockets picked.  The passengers on the Mayflower lost enough silk handkerchiefs to start a haberdasher’s shop, and every woman lost money.  In Cairo, whether you go to the bazaars or to a mosque to see the faithful at their prayers, your dragoman tells you not to have anything of value in your pockets, and not to carry your purse in your hand.

But we had not even got through the custom-house at Brindisi, when Gaze’s man recommended us to have our trunks corded and sealed, for they are sometimes broken open on the train.  We thought this rather a useless precaution, but Jimmie has travelled so much that he made us do it.  It seems that the King has admitted that he is powerless to stop these outrages, and so he begs foreign travellers to protect themselves, inasmuch as he is unable to protect them.

We stayed at the smartest hotel in Naples, but we had not been there two days before Jimmie’s valises were broken open, and all his studs and forty pounds in money were stolen.  That frightened us almost to death, but something worse happened.  One day at three o’clock in the afternoon my companion was sitting in her room writing a letter, and she happened to look up just in time to see the handle of the door turn slowly and softly.