If one has been a devoted patron of the opera or student of music, one has an Italian vocabulary to begin with. This, if accompanied by the proper gestures (for it is vain to speak without liberal movements, of the hands, shoulders, and eyebrows), this, Imaintain, will deceive all the English-speaking persons who may be seated near your table in a foreign cafe.
The very first evening after our arrival, Jack Copley asked Salemina and me to dine with him at the best restaurant in Venice.
Jack Copley is a well of nonsense undefiled, and he, like ourselves, had been in Italy only a few hours. He called for us in his gondola, and in the row across from the Giudecca we amused ourselves by calling to mind the various Italian words or phrases with which we were familiar. They were mostly titles of arias or songs, but Jack insisted, notwithstanding Salemina's protestations, that, properly interlarded with names of famous Italians, he could maintain a brilliant conversation with me at table, to the envy and amazement of our neighbours. The following paragraph, then, was our stock in trade, and Jack's volubility and ingenuity in its use kept Salemina quite helpless with laughter:-Guarda che bianca luna--Il tempo passato--Lascia ch' io pianga--Dolce far niente--Batti batti nel Masetto--Da capo--Ritardando--Andante--Piano--Adagio--Spaghetti--Macaroni--Polenta--Non e ver--Ah, non giunge--Si la stanchezza--Bravo--Lento--Presto--Scherzo--Dormi pura--La ci darem la mano--Celeste Aida--Spirito gentil--Voi che sapete--Crispino e la Comare--Pieta, Signore--Tintoretto--Boccaccio--Garibaldi--Mazzini--Beatrice Cenci--Gordigiani--Santa Lucia--Il mio tesoro--Margherita--Umberto--Vittoria Colonna -Tutti frutti--Botticelli--Una furtiva lagrima.
No one who has not the privilege of Jack Copley's acquaintance could believe with what effect he used these unrelated words and sentences. I could only assist, and lead him to ever higher flights of fancy.
We perceive with pleasure that our mother tongue presents equal difficulties to Italian manufacturers and men of affairs. The so-called mineral water we use at table is specially still and dead, and we think it may have been compared to its disadvantage with other more sparkling beverages, since every bottle bears a printed label announcing, "To Distrust of the mineral waters too foaming, since that they do invariable spread the Stomach."