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With a sickness of the legs like the rheumatism, for example, one eats, one sleeps, only one cannot walk or stand for many hours." In spite of his efforts to the contrary, the wonder and admiration grew deeper in Luigi's eyes. "Thou thinkest the ?" "I am sure," now that Luigi was reduced to the proper state of humility Biaggio gave up his attitude of distant oracle, and leaned close.
"Just so," replied Luigi, "and questions the most marvelous I have ever heard. And in this country, where everyone asks the questions. How long that I do not work, and if we have to eat?" Luigi laughed; "of a surety, Biaggio, she asked that. She sees that we live and she asks if we eat ma! chè! And then, if we have every day the meat?
He smiled and made the motion of getting up, but could not do it, and sank back again with a gesture of helplessness more eloquent than words. When the Lady in Brown Fur had gone, Vincenza found an extra bill, brand new, tucked into the pocket of the little Carolina. Luigi waited until he was quite sure that Biaggio would be alone.
In the new house we will keep for ourselves two rooms. "These people have the 'pull' even more than the alderman, Biaggio says," replied Luigi with a dreamy look in his eyes. "It may be that from this work I shall take three dollars each day." "Madonna mia," gasped Vincenza, "it is beyond belief."
Even after to have fifty years, think, fifty years, still they work. They work even with the children old enough to keep them. For many months The Skinny One, she who gives milk to the baby of Giacomo, had the habit to find him such work, like the foolishness of your painter. And Giacomo has already three children more than fifteen. Ma " Biaggio snorted his contempt.
"There is a way," he said slowly. "If thou write to her of the Brown Fur that thou art sick and cannot do the work " "But never in my life was I better. Only last week Giacomo said I have grown fat. How the " "It is possible," replied Biaggio wearily, "to be sick of a sickness that makes one neither thin nor white.
Then suddenly his manner changed. He leaned back in his chair, and apparently dismissed the subject with a wave of his fat hand. "And the little Carolina she is well in this weather of the devil?" But Luigi did not answer. He was thinking with a pucker between his black eyes. Biaggio watched him narrowly. At last he spoke, looking fixedly at the sausages above his head.
Business is business, and yesterday thy Vincenza returned the carrots because they were not fresh. Ecco!" Back in his own room, Luigi folded the three notes neatly, while Vincenza watched him, her gray eyes wide with wonder. "Marvelous, marvelous," she whispered just as Luigi had done, "to-night I thank the Virgin." As Biaggio had foretold, the Lady in Fur came every day.
"Of a truth it is not much, but when one wishes to buy the house, and already the family is begun, two dollars and a half each week " Luigi glanced at him sharply. "Two and " Biaggio drew the ink to him and dipped his pen. "Two and a half for thee, and for me " "Bene, bene," Luigi interrupted quickly, "it is only just." "Between friends," explained Biaggio as he began to write.
"It is nothing nothing," insisted Biaggio, patting the air with his pudgy hands in a gesture of denial, "a little kindness between friends." At great inconvenience to himself, Biaggio held the door open to give Luigi more light in crossing the street. As he closed it and turned out the gas, he smiled to himself. "And each bottle of oil will cost thee ten cents more, friend.
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