THE HORN-PLAYER COMFORTED

‘ Well, well, I understand ; and do you want me to go to the prefettura instead of you ? ’ asked Victor smiling.

‘ Oh no, your majesty, I will go ; but going, I should like to be able to say, “here is the money, and I owe it to the generosity of my king.” ’

‘ Very well ; we will provide it.’

The grateful musician kissed the liberal hand which saved him from ruin, and the king entered his box and related the incident to his friends.

‘Ah,’ said Count Castellengo, the Minister of the Household, whose life was a constant struggle to check his master’s extravagance, ‘if he makes this public tomorrow, everyone who has rent to pay will corne to the Quirinal for it’

The king shrugged his shoulders, and next day the player of the horn received 300 francs.

If was not on the battle-field alone that Victor Emmanuel was always ready to expose his life for the sake of his people. Whenever a town was visited by any violent épidémie, the king, besides contributing largely to the relief of the sufferers, héistened thither to assist personally in the work.

In 1865 the choiera was raging in Naples, and the inhabitants, seized with a panic, were migrating în hundreds from the city. So much dépends in this disease on the State of mind, that the terror caused by the panic increased the pestilence tenfold. It was then that the king, wishing to give couréige to his afflicted subjects by an example of utter fearlessness, arrived in Naples, and

hastened, in company with the syndic and the prefect, to visit ail the poor districts, which were most infected because of the dirt and squalor in which the inhabitants lived, ‘ where in the memory of man the least shadow of a king had never been seen,’ says the narrator. A great number of the lower classes held the person of a sovereign in a sort of superstitions awe, as endowed with more than human power for good or ill ; and so the presence of the benevolent king had a very efficacious effect.

In visiting the hospitals he stood beside the sick beds, and spoke encouragingly to the patients. Before one of these, already marked for death, the king stopped, and taking his frozen, damp hand, he pressed it, saying, ‘ Take couréige, poor man, and try to recover soon.’ The warm grasp of the hand, the strong cheerful voice, the récognition of the king’s face, had an agitating effect on the dying man. That evening the syndic visited the king and said : ‘ Your majesty’s coming is a joyful omen. I am happy to tell you that the doctors report a diminution of the disease in the course of the day, and your majesty has unawares worked a miracle. The man you saw this moming stretched for death, is out of danger this evening. The doctors say that the excitement of your presence caused a salutary crisis.’

‘ I am so glad. But what fun ! If they spread the report that I work miracles I am afraid the Neapolitans will divide me in pièces in order to reduce me to relies,’ said the king.

Victor Emmanuel had a droll humorous way of re-

A LONG-LIVED CIGAR.

lating little anecdotes, which amused his friends more from the manner of telling them than the matter. One day when he was on a journey the train stopped for a few minutes at a little country station in a very remote district, where probably the shadow of a king had never been seen. On the platform the syndic appeared, elegantly ‘ got up ’ for the occasion. The king, seeing the good man ‘ exhausting himself in bows,’ beckoned him to approach the carriage-window.

‘ I présumé, signore, that you are the syndic. I congfratulate you,’ said his majesty; and after some further remarks he opened his huge cigar-case, which he had always at hand, and offered him one of his havannahs.

‘ No, sire, I never could hâve the boldness to put my hand in your majesty’s cigar-case.’

‘ I pray you accept ; do me the pleasure,’ said the king persuasively, taking out a cigar and putting it into the hand of the modest syndic.

‘ Sire,’ said he, kissing the royal hand, ‘ this cigar shall be the chief glory of my comune. I shall smoke this cigar the rest of my life.’

Victor was a great smoker. In the Summer Theatre at Naples there was put up once a prohibition against smoking, which displeased the king, and he ordered it to be taken down. Then he lit a cigar, and offered some to his suite ; whereupon ail the men in the theatre began to smoke.

‘Behold, sire,’ observed one of the courtiers, ‘how quickly the example of royalty is followed.’

‘When ît is a bad example, yes,’ was the keen rejoinder.

Victor Emmanuel had a passion for hunting ; he never seemed in such good spirits as when he was inhaling the keen mountain air, and clambering over Alpine snows, where he outdid everyone in daring feats of agility. He never could be persuaded to wear flannel, or put on an overcoat or mantle. In these mountain excursions he slept under canvas in the severest weather, regardless of ail discomforts. On Sundays a priest was brought from the nearest village, and a little temporary altar erected in the king’s tent for religions service, in which he expected ail his following to assist ; for Victor Emmanuel was not, as he once said to the French ambassador, a mauvais chrétien. He reverenced everything sacred, he never used profane language, and we are told by one who knew him intimately, that ‘ it huit his nerves to hear anyone swear.’

The king used to send the produce of the chase as présents to strangers in the neighbourhood ; and once there was assembled not far off from the mountain in which the royal hunting-party were stationed, a number of young artists and authors, who on receiving a gift from the king thanked him in comic verse and sketches, which pleased him much. He invited them ail to spend a day or two with him, and received them with such a hearty hospitality, such bonhomie, such fun and wit, that the guests will never foi^et the pleasure of that mountain excursion. When thus set free from the cares of State and the irksome conventionalities of court