The innocents abroad; . not even dare to letme take my passport in my hands for twelve hours, I lookedso formidable. They judged it best to let me cool thought I wanted to take the town, likely. Little didthey know me. I wouldnt have it. They examined my bag-gage at the depot. They took one of my ablest jokes andread it over carefully tw^ice and then read it backwards. Butit was too deep for them. They passed it around, and everybody speculated on it awhile, but it mastered them all. It was no common joke. At length a veteran officer spelledit over deliberately and shook his head thr
The innocents abroad; . not even dare to letme take my passport in my hands for twelve hours, I lookedso formidable. They judged it best to let me cool thought I wanted to take the town, likely. Little didthey know me. I wouldnt have it. They examined my bag-gage at the depot. They took one of my ablest jokes andread it over carefully tw^ice and then read it backwards. Butit was too deep for them. They passed it around, and everybody speculated on it awhile, but it mastered them all. It was no common joke. At length a veteran officer spelledit over deliberately and shook his head three or four times andsaid that in his opinion it was seditious. That was the firsttime I felt alarmed. I immediately said I w^ould explain thedocument, and they crowded around. And so I explained and 264 CIVITA VECCHIA THE DISMAL, explained and explained, and they took notes of all I said, but themore I explained the more they could not understand it, and whenthey desisted at last, I could not even understand it ijscendi\ry document They said they believed it was an incendiary document,leveled at the government. I declared solemnly that it wasnot, but they only shook their heads and would not be satis-fied. Then they consulted a good while; and finally they con-fiscated it. I was very sorry for this, because I had worked along time on that joke, and took a good deal of pride in it,and now I suppose I shall never see it any more. ? I suppose itwill be sent up and filed away among the criminal archives ofRome, and will always be regarded as a mysterious infernalmachine which would have blown up like a mine and scatteredthe good Pope all around, but for a miraculous providentialinterference. And I suppose that all the time I am in Romethe police will dog me about from place to place because theythink I am a dangerous character. OFF FOR ROME. 265 It is fearfully hot in Civita Yecchia. The streets are madevery narrow and the toiises built very solid and heavy andhigh, as a p
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