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If they ask you, you are to tell them forty francs; and listen, Beppe, every franc over that you tell them, I shall deduct from your pourboire when I leave, do you understand?" "Si, Signore." A morning or two after the arrangement about the gondola Peter was leaning over the bridge of San Moise watching the sun on the copper vessels the women brought to the fountain, when his man came to him.
Altogether we managed to collect sufficient money to carry us to the Belgian frontier, and for our passage across from Ostend. But that tramp across Belgium, dio boia!" Here a clamour of voices interrupted Beppe, as each one of the travellers chimed in with a separate account of the horrors of that ghastly tramp across country in mid-winter.
Dinner over, the one-eyed baker, Beppe, proceeded to give us their news, and to recount the vicissitudes of their travels. Gnecco and Giannoli were anxious for news of comrades left behind in Italy. So-and-so was in prison, another had remained behind in Switzerland, a third had turned his coat, and was enjoying ill-gotten ease and home, others were either dead or lost to sight.
When the influx of starving Italians necessitated it, a kind of soup-kitchen was inaugurated over which Beppe presided, and very busy he was kept too, manufacturing minestras and polenta, a welcome innovation to me, I may mention, after a long regime of small and nauseous tarts, bread and jam, and cheese.
Beppe, the tall, one-eyed man, already referred to, seemed to be the life and spirit of the band. He was a rollicking good-natured fellow, an unpolished homme du peuple, but not inadmirable in his qualities of courage and cheerfulness the kind of man who would have cracked a joke on his death-bed and sung lustily en route to the gallows.
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.
Tonio overhears the mutual vows of Nedda and her lover, and bent upon vengeance, hurries off to bring the unsuspecting Canio upon the scene. He only arrives in time to see the disappearance of Silvio, and cannot terrify his wife into disclosing her lover's name, though he is only just prevented by Beppe, the Harlequin of the troupe, from stabbing her on the spot.
The group looked unusually animated and jolly; the incident evidently reminded them of their own country. As soon as they saw me enter they interrupted their talk, and Beppe stepped forward to shake hands, but the officer of the law interposed: "Now, you fellows, stay there; the young lady is going to speak to the inspector."
They, too, set out full of brave hopes and generous enthusiasm, but with too confident a trust in the beneficence of Providence as caterer to their material needs on the journey. Before a fortnight had elapsed, they also were back at the office, Beppe bearing the poor old Irishman on his shoulders in a quite crippled and exhausted condition.
I told Beppe I should soon be down, and he retired, pulling a wry face at the detective, and making some observation to his friends which made them all roar with laughter. Upstairs a scene of wild disorder greeted my eye.
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