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Bill more moderate, under the circumstances, no man ever discharged; Calabrian honesty came well out of the transaction. So I tumbled once more into the dirty, ramshackle diligenza, passed along the dusty road between the barred and padlocked warehouses, and arrived in good time at the station. No sooner had I set foot on the platform than I felt an immense relief.
No doubt the greater part of the poor people were in bed by eight o'clock every evening; only those who had dealings in the outer world were stirring when the diligenza arrived about ten, and I suspect that some of these snatched a nap before that late hour.
The fact was, they were waiting for one of the great events of the day at Ravenna, the arrival of the diligenza from Bologna. It was past six o'clock in the evening; and it could not now be long before the expected vehicle would arrive. It is a distance of some sixty miles from Bologna to Ravenna; the diligence started at five in the morning, and was due at the latter city at five in the evening.
When our eyes had met twice or thrice, and an ingenuous smile rose to his handsome face, I opened conversation, and he told me that he came every day to school from a little place called San Sostene to Catanzaro, there being no nearer instruction above the elementary; a journey of some sixteen miles each way, and not to be reckoned by English standards, for it meant changing at the Marina for the valley train, and finally going up the mountain side by diligenza.
"Diligenza compito!" cries the clerk, moving toward the waiting cabriolet "Signore Hugenoto." "Here!" replies a small, consequential-looking person, reconnoitring the interior of the vehicle. "Le Signore Plaèdo!" "Ci," responds a dark, erect gentleman, striding forward and saying, in clear Italian, "Are there no other passengers?"
There, however, stood the diligenza which was somehow to convey me to Catanzaro; I watched its loading with luggage-merchandise and mail-bags whilst the exquisite evening melted into night.
I perceived that the diligenza had just arrived, and that travellers were seizing upon their bedrooms. The invader, aware of his mistake, discharged a volley of apologies, and rushed out again. Five minutes later the door again banged open, and there entered a tall lad with an armful of newspapers; after regarding me curiously, he asked whether I wanted a paper.
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