"
"His father dead, and in London?" I stammered, completely confounded at
this extraordinary news, and fearing lest I had been too stupid in
misunderstanding him.
"Yes," he said, "it is too true that his father Vellintoni is dead. I
read it in the _Diario di Roma_."
But better than this was the ingenious argument of a _Frate_, whom I
met on board a steamer in going from Leghorn to Genoa, and who, having
pumped out the fact that I was an American, immediately began to
"improve" it in a discourse on Columbus. So he informed me that
Columbus was an Italian, and that he had discovered America, and was a
remarkable man; to all of which I readily assented, as being true, if
not new. But now a severe abstract question began to tax my friend's
powers. He said, "But how could he ever have imagined that the
continent of America was there? That's the question. It is
extraordinary indeed!" And so he sat cogitating, and saying, at
intervals, "_Curioso! Straordinario!_" At last "a light broke in upon
his brain." Some little bird whispered the secret. His face lightened,
and, looking at me, he said, "Perhaps he may have read that it was
there in some old book, and so went to see if it were or no." Vainly I
endeavored to show him that this view would deprive Columbus of his
greatest distinction.
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