Volume Ii Part 8 (1/2)
”Does Lord George understand it?”
”No, papa; but he says he is sure Giacomo can explain everything,--for he is a capital fellow, and honest as the sun!”
”And who is Giacomo?” said I.
”The Maestro di Casa, papa. He is over all the other servants, pays all the bills, keeps the keys of everything, and, in fact, takes charge of the household.”
”Where did he come from?”
”The Prince Belgia.s.so had him in his service, and strongly recommended him to Lord George as the most trustworthy and best of servants. His discharge says that he was always regarded rather in the light of a friend than a domestic!”
Shall I own to you, Tom, that I shuddered as I heard this? It may be a most unfair and ungenerous prejudice; but if there be any cla.s.s in life of whose good qualities I entertain a weak opinion, it is of the servant tribe, and especially of those who enter into the confidential category.
They are, to my thinking, a pestilent race, either tyrannizing over the weakness, or fawning to the vices, of their employers. I have known a score of them, and I rejoice to think that a very large proportion of that number have been since transported for life.
”Does Giacomo speak English?” asked I.
”Perfectly, papa; as well as French, Spanish, German, and a little Russian.”
”Send him to me, then,” said I, ”and let us have a talk together.
”You can't see him to-day, papa, for he is performing St. Barnabas in a grand procession that is to take place this evening.”
This piece of information shows me that it is a ”Festa,” and the post will consequently close early, so that I now conclude this, promising that you shall have an account of my interview with Giacomo by to-morrow or the day after.
Not a line from James yet, and I am beginning to feel very uncomfortable about him.
Yours ever faithfully,
Kenny I. Dodd.
LETTER XIII. KENNY JAMES DODD TO THOMAS PURCELL, ESQ., OF THE GRANGE, BRUFF
Como
My dear Tom,--This may perchance be a lengthy despatch, for I have just received a polite invitation from the authorities here to pack off, bag and baggage, over the frontier; and as it is doubtful where our next move may take us, I write this ”in extenso,” and to clear off all arrears up to the present date.
At the conclusion of my last, if I remember aright, I was in anxious expectation of a visit from Signor Giacomo Lamporeccho. That accomplished gentleman, however, had been so fatigued by his labors in the procession, and so ill from a determination of blood to the head, brought on by being tied for two hours to a tree, with his legs uppermost, to represent the saint's martyrdom, that he could not wait upon me till the third day after the Festa; and then his streaked eyeb.a.l.l.s and flushed face attested that even mock holiness is a costly performance.
”You are Giacomo?” said I, as he entered; and I ought to mention that in air and appearance he was a large, full, fine-looking man, of about eight-and-thirty or forty, dressed in very accurate black, and with a splendid chain of mosaic gold twined and festooned across his ample chest; opal s.h.i.+rt-studs and waistcoat b.u.t.tons, and a very gorgeous-looking signet-ring on his forefinger aided to show off a stylish look, rendered still more imposing by a beard a Grand Vizier might have envied, and a voice a semi-tone deeper than Lablache's.
”Giacomo Lamporeccho,” said he; and though he uttered the words like a human ba.s.soon, they really sounded as if he preferred not to be himself, but somebody else, in case I desired it.
”Well, Giacomo,” said I, easily, and trying to a.s.sume as much familiarity as I could with so imposing a personage, ”I want you to afford me some information about these accounts of mine.”
”Ah! the house accounts!” said he, with a very slight elevation of the eyebrows, but quite sufficient to convey to me an expression of contemptuous meaning.
”Just so, Giacomo; they appear to me high,--enormously, extravagantly high!”