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He seemed neither ashamed of himself nor indignant at his companions, merely sluggishly amused. "Well," continued Meneghino, "that letter was just due, and I intercepted it. It contained one hundred and eighty francs; would you believe me? and that went some way to get us over here.
Poor Meneghino reached London barefooted, his faithful canvas bag hanging disconsolately over his shoulder and all with woefully vacant stomachs. They formed a comically dismal group as they collapsed into the office in an exhausted heap. Amid these many strange and dubious, ludicrous or pathetic characters, some few heroic figures appeared.
At the present time this is less often the case; but every great city still keeps to its local mask Naples to the Pulcinella, Florence to the Stentorello, Milan to its often so admirable Meneghino. This is indeed scanty compensation for a people which possessed the power, perhaps to a greater degree than any other, to reflect and contemplate its own highest qualities in the mirror of the drama.
Kosinski, Armitage, and Giannoli, after making up and addressing the last parcel, had left for their respective abodes; Beppe and Meneghino, having turned the wheel the whole evening, had fallen to sleep exhausted, stretched on a bench in the machine-room; and I, after having partaken of a cup of tea and some hot buttered toast which old M'Dermott had provided for me, sat nodding and dozing on one side of the fire.
During the last fortnight of our stay we lived almost entirely on my potatoes. I don't know how the devil they would all have got on without me. It is true that a waitress at the Panetteria Viennese fell in love with Meneghino, and used to pass him on stale bread; but then you all know his appetite! He ate it nearly all himself on the way home. One day I sent Bonatelli out to reconnoitre.
One of their number had quite broken down on the road and they had been compelled to leave him behind. "Lucky fellow, that Morelli," exclaimed Meneghino, "enjoying good broth in a hospital while we were still trudging on through that infernal snow!" "And Antonietta?" inquired Giannoli, when the relation of these adventures had terminated.
Another relief expedition from the Tocsin met with scarcely more brilliant success. Beppe and Meneghino set out under the guidance of old M'Dermott, on tramp to Cardiff, whence they hoped to work their way out to the insurgent island.
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