“I am an Englishman,” he said.

“And not an officer?” she asked; but he gave no answer.  “Englishmen are rare in winter, and don’t like being mobbed,” said the woman.

Nodding to her urgent petition, he deferred the lighting of his cigar.  The vetturino requested him to jump up quickly, and a howl of “No smoking in Milan—­fuori!—­down with tobacco-smokers!” beset the carriage.  He tossed half-a-dozen cigars on the pavement derisively.  They were scrambled for, as when a pack of wolves are diverted by a garment dropped from the flying sledge, but the unluckier hands came after his heels in fuller howl.  He noticed the singular appearance of the streets.  Bands of the scum of the population hung at various points:  from time to time a shout was raised at a distance, “Abasso il zigarro!” and “Away with the cigar!” went an organized file-firing of cries along the open place.  Several gentlemen were mobbed, and compelled to fling the cigars from their teeth.  He saw the polizta in twos and threes taking counsel and shrugging, evidently too anxious to avoid a collision.  Austrian soldiers and subalterns alone smoked freely; they puffed the harder when the yells and hootings and whistlings thickened at their heels.  Sometimes they walked on at their own pace; or, when the noise swelled to a crisis, turned and stood fast, making an exhibition of curling smoke, as a mute form of contempt.  Then commenced hustlings and a tremendous uproar; sabres were drawn, the whitecoats planted themselves back to back.  Milan was clearly in a condition of raging disease.  The soldiery not only accepted the challenge of the mob, but assumed the offensive.  Here and there they were seen crossing the street to puff obnoxiously in the faces of people.  Numerous subalterns were abroad, lively for strife, and bright with the signal of their readiness.  An icy wind blew down from the Alps, whitening the housetops and the ways, but every street, torso, and piazza was dense with loungers, as on a summer evening; the clamour of a skirmish anywhere attracted streams of disciplined rioters on all sides; it was the holiday of rascals.

Our traveller had ordered his vetturino to drive slowly to his hotel, that he might take the features of this novel scene.  He soon showed his view of the case by putting an unlighted cigar in his mouth.  The vetturino noted that his conveyance acted as a kindling-match to awaken cries in quiet quarters, looked round, and grinned savagely at the sight of the cigar.

“Drop it, or I drop you,” he said; and hearing the command to drive on, pulled up short.

They were in a narrow way leading to the Piazza de’ Mercanti.  While the altercation was going on between them, a great push of men emerged from one of the close courts some dozen paces ahead of the horse, bearing forth a single young officer in their midst.

“Signore, would you like to be the froth of a boiling of that sort?” The vetturino seized the image at once to strike home his instance of the danger of outraging the will of the people.