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The King, who had turned away, turned towards us again, and looking Coretti straight in the eye, reached his hand out of the carriage. Coretti gave one leap forwards and clasped it. The carriage passed on; the crowd broke in and separated us; we lost sight of the elder Coretti. But it was only for a moment.
Oh, the two beautiful hours that we passed together! Derossi and Coretti are the two jolliest boys in the school; my father fell in love with them. Coretti had on his chocolate-colored tights and his catskin cap. He is a lively imp, who wants to be always doing something, stirring up something, setting something in motion.
Garrone carried a gourd filled with white wine; Coretti, his father's soldier-canteen, full of red wine; and little Precossi, in the blacksmith's blouse, held under his arm a two-kilogramme loaf. We went in the omnibus as far as Gran Madre di Dio, and then off, as briskly as possible, to the hills. How green, how shady, how fresh it was!
The father wore on his jacket the medal for valor between two commemorative medals, and his mustaches were curled and as pointed as two pins. We at once set out for the railway station, where the king was to arrive at half-past ten. Coretti, the father, smoked his pipe and rubbed his hands. "Do you know," said he, "I have not seen him since the war of 'sixty-six?
Therefore love and respect above all others, among your companions, the sons of the soldiers of labor; honor in them the toil and the sacrifices of their parents; disregard the differences of fortune and of class, upon which the base alone regulate their sentiments and courtesy; reflect that from the veins of laborers in the shops and in the country issued nearly all that blessed blood which has redeemed your country; love Garrone, love Coretti, love Precossi, love your little mason, who, in their little workingmen's breasts, possess the hearts of princes; and take an oath to yourself that no change of fortune shall ever eradicate these friendships of childhood from your soul.
Derossi and Coretti went up like monkeys; even little Precossi mounted briskly, in spite of the fact that he was embarrassed with that jacket which extends to his knees; and in order to make him laugh while he was climbing, all the boys repeated to him his constant expression, "Excuse me! excuse me!"
His companions accuse him of miserliness and usury. I do not know: I like him; he teaches me a great many things; he seems a man to me. Coretti, the son of the wood-merchant, says that he would not give him his postage-stamps to save his mother's life. My father does not believe it. "Wait a little before you condemn him," he said to me; "he has this passion, but he has heart as well."
All the boys dispersed, fleeing like arrows. I was standing in front of the bookseller's shop, into which my father had gone, and I saw several of my companions approaching at a run, mingling with others near me, and pretending to be engaged in staring at the windows: there was Garrone, with his penny roll in his pocket, as usual; Coretti, the little mason; and Garoffi, the boy with the postage-stamps.
The carriage arrived in front of us, a pace distant from the pillar. "Hurrah!" shouted many voices. "Hurrah!" shouted Coretti, after the others. The King glanced at his face, and his eye dwelt for a moment on his three medals. Then Coretti lost his head, and roared, "The fourth battalion of the forty-ninth!"
And Coretti came; and Garoffi came to present me with two tickets in his new lottery of "a penknife with five surprises," which he purchased of a second-hand dealer in the Via Bertola.
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