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'Chi e? says she; and I see a sbirro in the shop, eating polenta. 'Niente, niente, I say, and run. That told me that the babbo was away, and that his wife had a lover in the constabulary. Remember it, Don Francis, we may have need of her who knows? Shall I confess to you that I stole your sausage?" "Confess what you please, my dear," said I, "I shall shrive you."
The priest came to confess and communicate him, as he does all the bedridden at Easter-time, and that afternoon Babbo had less pain than for many a day. He kissed and blessed us as usual at bedtime, and then he told La Mamma to call him in the morning, so that he might light the lamp for her.
He will search all night till he is tired! Ah ah ah! That is good! And now back to the island quick! before he finds out!" He thrust out his arm towards Artois. "And that is my friend!" he exclaimed. "He who calls himself the friend of the little wicked Isidoro. P !" He turned his head and spat on to the balcony. "Gran Dio! And this white-haired Babbo!
You cannot know, signora, how often I have lain awake and cried to think that I should have been the only one of us all to eat like a pig that night, while dear Babbo lay dead in the house and the rest were sad and hungry. Pazienza! we need patience in this world, even with ourselves sometimes.
Sometimes, too, there were moments of strange tenderness within him for this helpless, suffering morsel of humanity that called him "babbo!" He did not know what might happen if the wrath of the redoubtable Magagnati were to be invoked against him, for this quarrel could not be disposed of as those small matters with the gondoliers had invariably been.
And then, sweet my "Babbo," you will fulfil your holy desire and the will of God, by making the holy Crusade, which I summon you in His Name to do swiftly and without negligence. They will turn to it with great eagerness; they are ready to give their life for Christ. Ah me, God, sweet Love! Raise swiftly, "Babbo," the gonfalon of the most holy Cross, and you will see the wolves become lambs.
There was no one who could make the little Zuane laugh like "babbo," though the tremulous, treble echo of the full tones of the gondolier had a pathos for those who listened.
Ninna was a blue-eyed thing, at the tottering, tumbling age a fair solid, which, like a loaded die, found its base with a constancy that warranted prediction. Tessa went to snatch her up, and when Babbo was paying due attention to the recent teeth and other marvels, she said, in a whisper, "And shall I buy some confetti for the children?"
She looked at him wistfully. "Mother's awfully sorry she she offended you so. Won't you forgive her now and poor Babbo about the little statue?" She hardly dared breathe the last words, as she timidly dropped her eyes. There were tears in her voice, and yet she was not very far from hysterical laughter. The whole scene was so fantastic ridiculous!
Felicia too had cried a little, but had soon consoled herself with the sensible reflection so it seemed to Tatham that at least her poor old Babbo was now out of his troubles. His thoughts strayed on to the coming hour and Felicia's future. It amused the young man's mere love of "eventful living" to imagine her surprise, if what he shrewdly supposed was going to happen, did happen.
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