Then they
visited the tower of Chia, but could not get in because the door is
thirty feet off the ground; so they came back and pitched a
magnificent tent which I brought from the BAHIANA a long time ago -
and where they will live (if I mistake not) in preference to the
friar's, or the owl- and bat-haunted tower. MM. T- and S- will be
left there: T-, an intelligent, hard-working Frenchman, with whom
I am well pleased; he can speak English and Italian well, and has
been two years at Genoa. S- is a French German with a face like an
ancient Gaul, who has been sergeant-major in the French line and
who is, I see, a great, big, muscular FAINEANT. We left the tent
pitched and some stores in charge of a guide, and ran back to
Cagliari.
'Certainly, being at the head of things is pleasanter than being
subordinate. We all agree very well; and I have made the testing
office into a kind of private room where I can come and write to
you undisturbed, surrounded by my dear, bright brass things which
all of them remind me of our nights at Birkenhead. Then I can work
here, too, and try lots of experiments; you know how I like that!
and now and then I read - Shakespeare principally.
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