“He must have been our man!” cried both the Misses Bingham, with excitement.

“In the manner of Taddeo Gaddi,” interrupted the guide, surprising us on the flank with a Holy Family.

“All right,” said the Senator.  “Well, this fellow proposed to bring our party oysters on the steamer, and we took him, of course, for the steward’s tout——­”

“Exactly what we thought.”

“Since you are going to tell the story, Alexander, I may remind you that he said they were the best in the world,” remarked momma, with several degrees of frost.

“My dear, the anecdote is yours.  But you remember I told him they wouldn’t be in it with Blue Points.”

“Now what,” exclaimed Miss Nancy, with excitement, “did he ask you for them?”

“Three francs a head, Nancy, wasn’t it, Mrs. Wick?  And you gave the order, and the man disappeared.  And you thought he’d gone to get them; at least, we did.  Nancy here had perfect confidence in him.  She said he had such dog-like eyes, and we were both perfectly certain they would be served when the steamer stopped at the Blue Grotto——­” Miss Cora paused to smile.

“But they weren’t,” suggested momma feebly.

“No, indeed, and hadn’t the slightest intention of being.”  Miss Nancy took up the tale.  “Not until we were taking off our gloves in the hotel verandah, and making up our minds to a good hot lunch, did those oysters appear—­exactly half a dozen, and bread and butter extra!  And we couldn’t say we hadn’t ordered them.  And the lunch was only two francs fifty, complet.  But we felt we ought to content ourselves with the oysters, though, of course, you wouldn’t with gentlemen in your party.  Now, what course did you pursue, Mrs. Wick?”

“Really,” said momma distantly, “I don’t remember.  I believe we had enough to eat.  Surely that is little Moses being taken from the bulrushes!  How it adds to one’s interest to recognise the subject.”

“By B. Luti,” responded Miss Nancy.  “I hope he isn’t very well known, for I never heard of him before.  Now, there’s a Domenichino; I can tell it from here.  I do love Domenichino, don’t you?”

I suppose the Senator knew that momma didn’t love Domenichino, and would possibly be at a loss to say why; at all events, he remarked that, talking of Capri, he hoped the Miss Binghams had not felt as badly about inconveniencing the donkeys that took them to the top of the cliff as momma had.  “Mrs. Wick,” he informed them, “rode an ass by the name of Michael Angelo, perfectly accustomed to the climate, and, do you believe it, she held her parasol over that animal’s head the whole way.”  At which everybody laughed, and momma, invested with an original and amiable weakness, was appeased.

“Of Michelangelo we have not here much,” said the guide patiently.  “Drawings yes, and one holy Family—­magnificent!  But all in another room w’ich——­”