The conversation
between them is carried on by means of signs, for the organ-grinder
knows no English, and the Earl is painfully and improbably ignorant of
Italian. He does not even know that Roma means Rome, and Londra, London.
This ignorance, however, is part of the author's ingenuity. It leads to
the establishment of a sort of object-speech, by aid of which the Earl
learns that his guest has come to England to prosecute a vendetta
against the man who ruined his happy Sicilian home. I need scarcely say
that this villain is none other than D'Orelli; and when at last he and
the Countess elope to Paris, the object-speech enables Giuseppe to
convey to the Earl, by aid of a brandy-bottle, a siphon, a broken plate,
and half-a-crown, not only the place of their destination, but the very
hotel to which they are going. This is a fair example of that ingenuity
for ingenuity's sake which was once thought the very essence of the
playwright's craft, but has long ago lost all attraction for intelligent
audiences.
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