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sympathetic signor Marlow. The price of the apartment was only six hundred lire a week
.
    Well, darling, it was probably worth the money. In fact, I should say that it was cheap. But six hundred lire a week! Either the manager was trying it on (it is still a popular illusion here that all Americans and English are millionaires), or
the late lamented and so sympathetic signor Ferning had made a better bargain with Spartacus than I had. The Manager was dumbfounded when I turned it down so promptly and, with a hearty misunderstanding of the situation, tried to show me something even more luxurious and expensive on the first floor. We retired in disorder. I shall have to get Fitch to tell me more about Ferning when he writes
.
    I did not tell Claire of the suspicion I had entertained that my assistant might have arranged to take a commission on the deal. The idea had crossed my mind as soon as the Manager mentioned the price; but as Bellinetti had not seemed at all put out when I had refused the offer and as, on reflection, I had not seen how even a generous commission could account altogether for such a price, I had quickly abandoned the notion.
    By this time, the effects of the brandy and beer were beginning to wear off and I was feeling rather tired. Bellinetti, bounding with energy, was all for going on an intensive apartment hunt; but I decided that the best thing I could do was to put up at a hotel for a day or two and find a place at my leisure. Bellinetti knows the management here, so here I came
.
    It is not quite as expensive as the note-paper might lead you to think. It appears that the present vogue is for
“
modernity
”
à la Marinetti. The only really modern aspect of the Parigi is the hot-water system which gurgles a great deal and makes the place like an oven. The rest is, I should say, a relic of Milan under Napoleon. The corridors are shadowy, the ceilings are high, there is much green plush and dull gilt plaster work. In the restaurant (nearly always two-thirds empty), there are long mirrors with the silvering turning black near the edges. My bed is an enormous mahogany structure with a plush canopy impressively edged with tarnished gold braid, while the chair in which I am sitting now is more uncomfortable
than I should have thought possible. The Parigi is not, I should say, a very paying proposition for the owners. But then I haven’t yet seen the extras on the bill
.
    Milan, as a whole, has proved something of a surprise. I don’t know why it should have done so; but you know how it is. You get an imaginary picture of a place in your mind, and then are upset when the reality doesn’t fit. I had always pictured it as a collection of small houses in the Borghese manner grouped round an enormous rococo opera house peopled by stout, passionate tenors, sinister-looking baritones and large mezzo-sopranos with long pearl necklaces. Vociferous international audiences thronged the streets. Actually, it is nothing more nor less than an Italian version of Birmingham. I haven’t yet set eyes on La Scala, but a poster told me that they are doing ballet there—not even opera. The only
“
sight
”
I have seen so far is the offices of the Popolo d’Italia, from which Mussolini is said to have set out on the March to Rome. Bellinetti pointed them out to me. He is an enthusiastic adherent of Fascismo and tells me that Italy will
“
wade through blood to an Empire
.”
He didn’t tell me whose blood, but I gather that he does not expect to be called upon to supply any part of it
.
    I was afterwards told that Mussolini’s participation in the glorious March on Rome was confined to arriving in the Eternal City three days later in the luxury of a
wagon-lit
. But it is quite true that he set out from the offices of the
Popolo
. That, however, is by the way.
    I have spent most of to-day looking into things at the Via San Giulio. The offices themselves are on the fourth floor of a comparatively recent building and,