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On catching sight of him, I suddenly recognized him as the old employee who lives on the fourth floor of our house with his grandnephew. He was stretched out on a chair, with a handkerchief over his eyes. "I did not do it intentionally!" sobbed Garoffi, half dead with terror; "I did not do it intentionally!" Two or three persons thrust him violently into the shop, crying, "Your face to the earth!
And the policeman and the other people were crying more loudly than ever: "Who was it? Who did it? One of his glasses has been driven into his eye! He has been blinded! The ruffians!" I thought that Garoffi would fall to the earth. "Come," said Garrone, resolutely, "I will defend you;" and grasping him by the arm, he thrust him forward, supporting him as though he had been a sick man.
But he is better; be at ease; he is better and almost well. Come here." Garoffi, who did not perceive us in his confusion, approached the bed, forcing himself not to cry; and the old man caressed him, but could not speak. "Thanks," said the old man; "go and tell your father and mother that all is going well, and that they are not to think any more about it."
Ah! now I know where he goes to pilfer iron filings, which he sells for old papers, that barterer of a Garoffi! When we arrived in front of the door, we saw Precossi seated on a little pile of bricks, engaged in studying his lesson, with his book resting on his knees. He rose quickly and invited us to enter.
Garoffi was thoroughly terrified to-day, in the expectation of a severe punishment from the teacher; but the master did not make his appearance; and as the assistant was also missing, Signora Cromi, the oldest of the schoolmistresses, came to teach the school; she has two grown-up children, and she has taught several women to read and write, who now come to accompany their sons to the Baretti schoolhouse.
Garoffi, bursting into tears, embraced the old man's knees, and the latter, having felt for the boy's head with his hand, caressed his hair. Then all said: "Go away, boy! go, return home." And my father drew me out of the crowd, and said to me as we passed along the street, "Enrico, would you have had the courage, under similar circumstances, to do your duty, to go and confess your fault?"
Beg his pardon!" and they threw him to the ground. But all at once two vigorous arms set him on his feet again, and a resolute voice said: "No, gentlemen!" It was our head-master, who had seen it all. "Since he has had the courage to present himself," he added, "no one has the right to humiliate him." All stood silent. "Ask his forgiveness," said the head-master to Garoffi.
In order to climb the more easily, all the boys had daubed their hands with resin, which they call colophony, and as a matter of course it is that trader of a Garoffi who provides every one with it, in a powdered form, selling it at a soldo the paper hornful, and turning a pretty penny.
"Who was it? Who did it?" the crowd continued to cry. Then I overheard Garrone say in a low voice to Garoffi, "Come, go and present yourself; it would be cowardly to allow any one else to be arrested." "But I did not do it on purpose," replied Garoffi, trembling like a leaf. "No matter; do your duty," repeated Garrone. "But I have not the courage." "Take courage, then; I will accompany you."
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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