CHAPTER XVII. NEMESIS.
The Maestro had a very comfortable suite of apartments in Milan overlooking the Via Carlo Alberto, near the Piazza del Duomo, which were chosen by him on account of their situation, as he could sit at the window of his bedroom and amuse himself by gazing at the crowded street. This watching of the populace was his great delight, and when not giving a lesson he was generally stationed at his window, or else employed in reading Il Seccolo, which he did in a curious fashion, by holding it close to his best-seeing eye.
Of course, like all the entrances to these Milanese flats, the stairs were singularly damp, dark, and malodorous, and after running the gauntlet of a fat portanaia, who was devouring a large dish of polenta in her glass house, we climbed up the humid ste
