want it at any price, so she was packed off by herself; and when the Lightning Conductor slowly drove the car on board the little Sirena I was by his side. There was a moment of awestruck silence on the quay; but when Brown had gently manœuvred Balzac into position in a clear space on deck, the murmurs of doubt and disapproval turned into a burst of delighted wonder. Brown and I felt like "variety" artistes being applauded for a clever turn, and the appropriate thing would have been to bow and kiss our hands.
But all this was nothing to what was in store for us at the Grande Marina at Capri. If we had gone in one of the bigger steamers, we should have had to get the automobile into a small boat, or perhaps lash it somehow on to two boats; but the Sirena is so small that she can come up along the landing-place, which was one reason why, after Brown had made inquiries, he was willing to go with the fowls and vegetables. The nearer we got to the island, the more beautiful it looked, and as we came in Brown was telling me things about Tiberius' palaces and where they had stood, when suddenly a shout went up from the quay. A group of stalwart women, clustered together there, were laughing and pointing at our car. They belonged to a race of Amazons bred on Capri, whose daily work it is to land heavy goods and carry trunks on their heads to the omnibuses and cabs in waiting at the end of the quay. Before we were fairly in, they swooped like a pack of wolves on the car, laughing and gabbling, and somehow they and Brown landed it on the slippery little quay.
