“‘A pleasant journey to your highness,’ said the minister.

“‘Go to the devil!’ retorted Hussein.

“Before an hour had elapsed, the dey had chartered a small vessel, on board of which he embarked the same evening with his suite, his wives, and his treasures; and at midnight he set sail; cursing the tyranny that prevented a man from drowning his wife and cutting off the heads of his slaves.  The next day the minister of police had the culprits brought before him and examined.  Osmin was found guilty of having slept when he ought to have watched, and Zaida of having watched when she ought to have slept.  But, by some strange omission, the Neapolitan code allots no punishment to such offences; and, consequently, Osmin and Zaida, to their infinite astonishment, were immediately set at liberty.  Osmin took to selling pastilles for a livelihood, and the lady got employment as dame de comptoir in a coffeehouse.  As to the dey, he had left Naples with the intention of going to England, in which country, as he had been informed, a man is at liberty to sell his wife, if he may not drown her.  He was taken ill, however, on the road, and obliged to stop at Leghorn, where he died.”

M. Dumas, not being in good odour with the Neapolitan authorities, on account of some supposed republican tendencies of his, is at Naples under an assumed name; and, as it is uncertain how long he may be able to preserve his incognito, he is desirous of seeing all that is to be seen in as short a time as possible.  He finds that Naples, independently of its suburbs, consists of three streets where every body goes, and five hundred streets where nobody goes.  The three streets are, the Chiaja, the Toledo, and the Forcella; the five hundred others are nameless—­a labyrinth of houses, which might be compared to that of Crete, deducting the Minotaur, and adding the Lazzaroni.  There are three ways of seeing Naples—­on foot, in a corricolo or in a carriage.  On foot, one goes every where, but one sees too much; in a carriage, one only goes through the three principal streets, and one sees too little—­the corricolo is the happy medium, the juste milieu, to which M. Dumas for once determines to adhere.  Having made up his mind, he sends for his host, and enquires where he can hire a corricolo by the week or month.  His host tells him he had better buy one, horse and all.  To this plan M. Dumas objects the expense.

“‘It will cost you,’ said M. Martin, after a momentary calculation in his head, ’it will cost you—­the corricolo ten ducats, each horse thirty carlini, the harness a pistole; in all, eighty French francs.’

“‘What! for ten ducats I shall have a corricolo?’

“‘A magnificent one.’

“‘New?’

“’Oh! you are asking too much.  There are no such things as new corricoli.  There is a standing order of the police forbidding coachmakers to build them.’