“Though we see beans here,” said Mrs. Peterkin, “they are not ’Boston beans’!”

She had fancied she would have to live on stuffed ostrich (ostrich stuffed with iron filings, that the books tell of), or fried hippopotamus, or boiled rhinoceros.  But she met with none of these, and day after day was rejoiced to find her native turkey appearing on the table, with pigeons and chickens (though the chickens, to be sure, were scarcely larger than the pigeons), and lamb that was really not more tough than that of New Hampshire and the White Mountains.

If they dined with the Arabs, there was indeed a kind of dark molasses-gingerbread-looking cake, with curds in it, that she found it hard to eat.  “But they like it,” she said complacently.

The remaining little boy, too, smiled over his pile of ripe bananas, as he thought of the quarter-of-a-dollar-a-half-dozen green ones at that moment waiting at the corners of the streets at home.  Indeed, it was a land for boys.  There were the dates, both fresh and dried,—­far more juicy than those learned at school; and there was the gingerbread-nut tree, the dom palm, that bore a nut tasting “like baker’s gingerbread that has been kept a few days in the shop,” as the remaining little boy remarked.  And he wished for his brothers when the live dinner came on board their boat, at the stopping-places, in the form of good-sized sheep struggling on the shoulders of stout Arabs, or an armful of live hens and pigeons.

All the family (or as much of it as was present) agreed with Mrs. Peterkin’s views.  Amanda at home had seemed quite a blessing, but at this distance her services, compared with the attentions of their Maltese dragoman and the devotion of their Arab servants, seemed of doubtful value, and even Mrs. Peterkin dreaded returning to her tender mercies.

“Just imagine inviting the Russian Count to dinner at home—­and Amanda!” exclaimed Elizabeth Eliza.

“And he came to dinner at least three times a week on board the boat,” said the remaining little boy.

“The Arabs are so convenient about carrying one’s umbrellas and shawls,” said Elizabeth Eliza.  “How I should miss Hassan in picking up my blue veil!”

The family recalled many anecdotes of the shortcomings of Amanda, as Mrs. Peterkin leaned back upon her divan and wafted a fly-whisk.  Mr. Peterkin had expended large sums in telegrams from every point where he found the telegraph in operation; but there was no reply from Solomon John, and none from the two little boys.

By a succession of telegrams they had learned that no one had fallen into the crater of Vesuvius in the course of the last six months, not even a little boy.  This was consoling.

By letters from the lady from Philadelphia, they learned that she had received Solomon John’s telegram from Geneva at the time she heard from the rest of the family, and one signed “L.  Boys” from Naples.  But neither of these telegrams gave an address for return answers, which she had, however, sent to Geneva and Naples, with the fatal omission by the operator (as she afterward learned) of the date, as in the other telegrams.