Tired and sleepy as I was, I passed but an indifferent night, for, notwithstanding that my room had two large windows overlooking the sea, and that I kept them both open, the heat was perfectly stifling.
I was just thinking of going out the next morning about ten, when in walked the Baron and Signor Medin, and we at once adjourned for breakfast at the same place where we had supped the previous night; I say place, as it was neither an inn nor a _café_. How shall I describe it? The following is the way we got at it, anyhow. In the main street of Budua, near to the land gate, on the left hand as you come in, you meet with five rugged stone steps, flanked by a shaky single iron railing. These lead up to a strong wooden door, which at some period, of its existence may have enjoyed the privilege of paint, but of which no trace remains at the present moment, not even enough to enable one to make a guess at the colour it once enjoyed.
Entering by this door, I found myself in a stuffy, dirty hall, "_a terreno_" pervaded by a multitude of vile smells, one more awful than the other, but all so dovetailed and commingled that it was perfectly impossible to tell what the composition was. Turning sharp to the left, we mounted a steep stone staircase, at the top of which we were greeted by the same odour that had met us on entering, in which now the smell of assafœtida and garlic clearly predominated. We found ourselves in the kitchen of the establishment, over which reigned supreme a good-humoured, fat German _Frau_ of fifty or more, assisted by two bright-eyed, sharp-looking Dalmatian lads, begrimed with dirt and shining with grease and perspiration. The _Frau_ piloted us through this kitchen, where the heat must have been 110°, if not more, and brought us into the dining-room, a pretty good-sized room with windows round the three sides of it, the furniture consisting solely of one long deal table down the middle, and a score of rush-bottomed chairs around it. At this table were seated a dozen or so of German officers demolishing their "early bit."
I was here received by the _Frau's_ worse half, a portly man of sixty or thereabouts. His coat was off, but he had on instead a huge pair of silver spectacles. He at once showed me to my seat at the table, when I apologised, through the Baron, to the officers for disturbing them at their breakfast.
