Rollo in Rome Part 9

"O Rollo," said Charles, "what a story! I don't believe it."

"Nor I," said Rollo. "Indeed, I don't think any body nowadays believes it exactly. But that is really the story. You can read it in the history of Rome. These two children, when they grew up, laid the foundations of Rome. I don't really believe that the story is true; but if it is true, this is the very place where the basket, with the two babies in it, must have drifted along."

Charles gazed for a few minutes in silence on the current of turbid water which was shooting swiftly under the bridge, and then said that it was time for them to go.

"Yes," said Rollo; "and we will turn round and go back, for it is of no use to go over the bridge. I am sure that we did not come over the river when we set out from the hotel, and so we must keep on this side."

Rollo concluded, however, not to go back the same way that he came; and so making signs to the coachman for this purpose, he turned into another street, and as the carriage drove along, he and Charles looked out in every direction for their hotel; but no signs of it were to be seen.

After going on for some distance, Rollo's attention was attracted by a sign in English over a shop door as follows:--

MANUFACTURE OF ROMAN SCARFS. ENGLISH SPOKEN.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, suddenly, "that is just what I wanted to find." And he immediately made a sign for the coachman to stop at the door.

"What is it?" asked Charles.

"It is a place where they make Roman scarfs," said Rollo, "and I want to get one for my cousin Lucy. She told me to be sure, if I came to Rome, to get her a Roman scarf. You can't get them in any other place."

As Rollo said this, he descended from the carriage, and Charles followed him.

"They speak English here," said Rollo, as he went into the shop, "and so we shall not have any difficulty."

These Roman scarfs are very pretty ornaments for the necks and shoulders of ladies. They are made of silk, and are of various sizes, some being large enough to form a good wide mantle, and others not much wider than a wide ribbon. The central part of the scarf is usually of some uniform hue, such as black, blue, green, or brown; and the ends are ornamented with stripes of various colors, which pa.s.s across from side to side.

Rollo wished to get a small scarf, and the ground of it was to be green.

This was in accordance with the instructions which Lucy had given him.

He found great difficulty, however, in making the shopman understand what he wanted. To all that Rollo said, the shopman smiled, and said only, "Yes, sir, yes, sir," and took down continually scarfs and ap.r.o.ns of different kinds, and showed them to Rollo, to see if any of them were what he wanted.

At last, by pointing to a large one that had a green ground, and saying, "Color like that," and then to a small one of a different kind, and saying, "Small, like that," the shopman began to understand.

"Yes, sir," said the shopman; "yes, sir; I understand. Must one make--make. See!"

So saying, the shopman opened a door in the back side of the shop, and showed Rollo and Charles the entrance to a room in the rear, where the boys had heard before the sound of a continual thumping, and where now they saw several silk looms, with girls at work at them, weaving scarfs.

"Ah, yes," said Rollo. "You mean that you can make me one. That will be a good plan, Charley," he added. "Lucy will like it all the better if I tell her it was made on purpose for her.

"When can you have it done?" asked Rollo.

"Yes, sir," said the shopman, bowing and smiling; "yes, sir; yes, sir."

"When?" repeated Rollo. "What time?"

"Ah, yes, sir," said the shopman. "The time. All time, every time.

Yesterday."

"Yesterday!" repeated Rollo, puzzled.

"To-morrow," said the man, correcting himself. He had said yesterday by mistake for to-morrow. "To-morrow. To-morrow he will be ready--the scarf."

"What time to-morrow shall I come?" asked Rollo.

"Yes, sir," said the shopman, bowing again, and smiling in a very complacent manner. "Yes, sir, to-morrow."

"But what _time_ to-morrow?" repeated Rollo, speaking very distinctly, and emphasizing very strongly the word _time_. "What time?"

"O, every time," said the man; "all time. You shall have him every time to-morrow, because you see he will make begin the work on him this day."

"Very well," said Rollo, "then I will come to-morrow, about noon."

So Rollo and Charles bade the shopman good by, and went out of the shop.

"Is that what they call speaking English?" asked Charles.

"So it seems," said Rollo. "Sometimes they speak a great deal worse than that, and yet call it speaking English."

So Rollo and Charles got into the carriage again. Rollo took out his wallet, and made a memorandum of the name of the shop where he had engaged the sash, and of the street and number. The coachman sat quietly upon his seat, waiting for Rollo to finish his writing, and expecting then to receive directions where he was to go.

"If I could only find a commissioner that speaks French or English,"

said Rollo, "I could tell him what we want, and he could tell the coachman, and in that way we should soon get home."

"Can't you find one at some hotel?" asked Charles.

"Why, yes," said Rollo. "Why did not I think of that? We'll stop at the very first hotel we come to. I'll let him drive on till he comes to one.

No; I'll tell him to go to the Hotel d'Amerique. That is the only name of a hotel that I know."

So Rollo p.r.o.nounced the words "Hotel d'Amerique" to the coachman, and the coachman, saying, "_Si, signore_," drove on. In a short time he drew up before the door of the hotel where Mr. George had stopped first, on arriving in town. A waiter came to the door.

"Is there a commissioner here who speaks English or French?" asked Rollo.

"Yes, sir," said a man who was standing by the side of the door when the carriage stopped, and who now came forward. "_I_ speak English."

"I want you to help us find our hotel," said Rollo. "We don't know the name of it. I shall know it when I see it; and so I want you to get on the box with the coachman, and direct him to drive to one hotel after another, till I see which is the right one."

"Very well," said the commissioner, "I will go. Do you remember any thing about the hotel,--how it was situated."

"There was a small, open s.p.a.ce before it," said Rollo, "and a fountain under a tree by the side of it."

"It must have been the Hotel d'Angleterre," said the commissioner.

"In going in at the front door, we went _down_ one or two steps, instead of up," said Rollo.

"Yes," said the commissioner, "it was the Hotel d'Angleterre." Then seating himself on the box by the side of the coachman, he said to the latter, addressing him in Italian,--

"Lo canda d'Ingleterra," which is the Italian for Hotel d'Angleterre, or, as we should express it in our language, "The English Hotel."

The coachman drove on, and in a few minutes came to the hotel.