Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 November 1904 — POOR TROMBETTI! [ARTICLE]

POOR TROMBETTI!

The Sad Tale of the Professor and the Journalist. Professor Trombetti, whose praises were so much sung in the foreign press as knowing the greatest number of languages of any one ever born, relates an anecdote of himself which occurred just after he was “discovered.” In Rome he was so pestered by journalists that his patience at last gave way, and when cornered by the gentlemen of the press his language became distinctly lurid. One day as he was coming out of the central postoffice a frank looking young man stepped up to him, and, holding out his hand, said: “I am so glad to make your acquaintance; I have been trying to find you for days.” “And may I inquire with whom I am speaking?” “Why, I am X! Not a near relation to be sure, but near enough to offer you congratulations,” etc. Professor Trombetti, reassured, and glad to get hold of some one to unburden himself to, took the stranger’s arm, and, as they went down the street, gave, in emphatic terms, a description of his sufferings, his opinion of journalists, apd, incidentally, much information about himself which the papers had been vainly sighing for. Finally they parted with an engagement for dinner the next evening. That night the professor was sitting tranquilly in a restaurant, the observed of all observers, when suddenly he was seen to spring to his feet with a smothered exclamation. His friends crowded about for an explanation, but he could only sit down weakly and point to his newspaper, the Giornale d’ltalia. There, in large print, were his imprudent revelations of the afternoon. He had been “done” by a journalist—Pall Mall Gazette.