By rights, he belonged in the second act of a rural Indian play,
of a generation or two ago; but here he was, wandering disconsolately
through the Louvre. He had come over to spend four months, he
told us with a heave of the breath, and he still had two months
of it unspent, and he just didn't see how he was going to live
through it!
The old lady was in the great National Museum at Naples, fluttering
about like a distracted little brown hen. She was looking for the
Farnese Bull. It seemed her niece in Knoxville had told her the
Farnese Bull was the finest thing in the statuary line to be found
in all Italy, and until she had seen that, she wasn't going to see
anything else. She had got herself separated from the rest of her
party and she was wandering along about alone, seeking information
regarding the whereabouts of the Farnese Bull from smiling but
uncomprehending custodians and doorkeepers. These persons she
would address at the top of her voice. Plainly she suffered from
a delusion, which is very common among our people, that if a
foreigner does not understand you when addressed in an ordinary
tone, he will surely get your meaning if you screech at him. When
we had gone some distance farther on and were in another gallery,
we could still catch the calliope-like notes of the little old
lady, as she besought some one to lead her to the Farnese Bull.
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