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"Democrat!" shouted the chestnut vender triumphantly. "No, sir! Yoost politigs," replied the unpartisan Bertha. "You keeb oud politigs." "Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, Ogostine, Ogostine! Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, Nees coma ross."
Bertha's eyes had not rested upon Toby where they innocently sought him, in the front ranks, even scanning the carriages, seeking him in all positions which she conceived as highest in honour, and she would have missed him altogether, had not there reached her, out of chaotic clamours, a clear, high, rollicking tenor: "Ahaha! du libra Ogostine, Ogostine, Ogostine!
Ahaha! du libra Ogostine, Nees coma ross!" Then the eager eyes found their pleasure, for there, in the last line of Pixley's pirates, the very tail of the procession, danced Pietro Tobigli, waving his pink torch at her, proud, happy, triumphant, a true Republican, believing all company equal in the republic, and the rear rank as good as the first. "Vote a Republican!" he shouted.
The song was always a teasing of her and carried all his friendly laughter at her, because of her German ways; but it became softly exultant whenever she betrayed her interest in him. "Libra Ogostine, she afraid I go penitensh?" he inquired. "Me!" she jeered with uneasy laughter. "I ain'd care! but you you don' look oud, you git in dod voikhouse!"
"Nefer, nefer! you t'ink I'm takin' up mit a hant-orkan maan, Mister Toby?" Whereupon he would carol out the tender taunt, "Ahaha, du libra Ogostine!" "Yoost a hant-orkan maan!" "No! No! No oragan! I am a greata greata merchant. Vote a Republican! Polititshian! To-bigli, Chititzen Republican. Naturalasize! March in a parade!"
Bertha dwelt in a perpetual serenade: on warm days, when the restaurant doors were open, she could hear him singing, not always "Ogostine," but festal lilts of Italy, liquid and strangely sweet to her; and at such times, when the actual voice was not in her ears, still she blushed with delight to hear in her heart the thrilling echoes of his barcaroles, and found them humming cheerily upon her own lips.
"You yoost put your money by der builtun-loan 'sociation, Toby," she advised gently. "Dey safe ut fer you." "T'ree hunder' fifta dolla no!" answered her betrothed. "I keep in de pock'!" He showed her where the bills were pinned into his corduroy waistcoat pocket. "See! Eesa yau! Onna my heart, libra Ogostine!" "Toby, uf you ain'd dake ut by der builtun-loan, blease put ut in der bink?"
Because of this mystery, upon which he merrily insisted, she affected a fear that he would some day desert her. "You don' tell me where you lif, I t'ink you goin' ran away of me, Toby. I vake opp some day; git a ledder dod you gone back home by 'Talian lady dod's grazy 'bout you!" "Ahaha! Libra Ogostine, you believe I can make a write weet a pen-a-paper? I don' know that-a how.
So it befell that Bertha was fascinated; that, blushing, she laughed back to him, and was nothing offended when, at his first sight of her, he rippled out at once into "Ahaha, du libra Ogostine." Then extraordinary things happened to the English language. "I ain'd nefer can like no foreigner!" she often joked back to a question of his.
And she had whispered to him, in love with his old tender mockery of her, to sing "Libra Ogostine" for her before he said good-night. Mr.
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