Faster still the car flew down the road.  The air that streamed past us held the faint, elusive perfume of Italy, which softly hints the presence of the walnut, the chestnut, and the grape.  Through village after village we swept at speed, our lamps shining now on mulberry and fig trees, and on vines trained over trellises held up by splintered granite slabs.  Next we came suddenly upon an Italian-looking town with bad pave and dimly lighted streets, where three or four workmen, early astir, stared at us in bewilderment.  It was Bellinzona; but passing through, we came out presently on the margin of an immense sheet of water, and it was only in Locarno on the edge of Lago Maggiore, when dawn was paling the eastern sky, that Jack at last drew rein.

No one was tired; no one wanted to rest.  On the contrary, our rapid flight over the Alps had intoxicated us with the sense of speed; and we were all excitedly for going on until we should reach the frontier.  As pink dawn blossomed in the sky, like a heavenly orchard, and the mountain tops were beaten into copper, we glided along the edge of the lake, past picturesque villages and campanili, and cypress trees.  At the Italian frontier there were the usual tedious formalities of payment and sealing the car with a leaden seal; but when all this was done by sleepy officials, surly at our early passage, though little recking of our crimes, we sailed on again, Molly driving now, through a landscape magically clear in the young morning light.

Suddenly we all started in joyous astonishment, and Molly brought the car to a stop.  Each had seen the same thing, each had been struck with the same thought.  Here, at last, we had found what we had come so far to seek; what Switzerland denied us, Italy offered.  Standing alone in a field by the roadside was a small, dark grey donkey, tethered to a stone; and no other living being was in sight.  The creature was not eating; it was only thinking; and it looked at us with an eye that seemed to speak of loneliness and the desire for human fellowship.  “The very thing for you!” cried Molly; and the long-sought-for treasure, finding itself observed, flicked one of its heavy ears.

Gotteland and I dismounted and went nearer.  As we approached, the donkey nickered; and as its family is famed for reticence, such proof of friendliness made me yearn to possess the deserted little beast.  But its legs were very thin, its hoofs exceedingly small, and the thought of loading so frail a structure with the great packs that held my camping kit seemed a barbarity.  Meanwhile Gotteland, who knows something of everything, had carefully examined the tiny animal, and just as I was growing sentimental over its perfections, he broke the charm by pronouncing it to be incredibly old, and unfit for work.  He also drew my attention to a disagreeable sore upon its shoulder.  It was sad; but indisputably the man was right; in any case there was no one with whom a bargain could have been arranged, and with poignant regret I was forced to leave my treasure-trove to its solitary thoughts.  After this we did not stop again until Molly steered the car to the door of a beautiful hotel in Pallanza, where the shirt-sleeved concierge hurried into his gold-laced coat, to receive in fitting style the unusually early guests.