The little man obeyed his orders, and stood ready to give him a lighted

match; for he was now rolling his tobacco into cigarettes by the aid of

little squares of paper which had been brought in with it. 'Here! You may have one.'

'A thousand thanks, my master!' John Baptist said in his own language,

and with the quick conciliatory manner of his own countrymen.

Monsieur Rigaud arose, lighted a cigarette, put the rest of his stock

into a breast-pocket, and stretched himself out at full length upon the

bench. Cavalletto sat down on the pavement, holding one of his ankles in

each hand, and smoking peacefully. There seemed to be some uncomfortable

attraction of Monsieur Rigaud's eyes to the immediate neighbourhood of

that part of the pavement where the thumb had been in the plan. They

were so drawn in that direction, that the Italian more than once

followed them to and back from the pavement in some surprise.

'What an infernal hole this is!' said Monsieur Rigaud, breaking a long

pause. 'Look at the light of day. Day? the light of yesterday week, the

light of six months ago, the light of six years ago. So slack and dead!'

It came languishing down a square funnel that blinded a window in the

staircase wall, through which the sky was never seen--nor anything else.

'Cavalletto,' said Monsieur Rigaud, suddenly withdrawing his gaze from

this funnel to which they had both involuntarily turned their eyes, 'you

know me for a gentleman?' 'Surely, surely!' 'How long have we been here?'

'I, eleven weeks, to-morrow night at

midnight. You, nine weeks and three days, at five this afternoon.'

'Have I ever done anything here? Ever touched the broom, or spread

the mats, or rolled them up, or found the draughts, or collected the

dominoes, or put my hand to any kind of work?'

'Never!' 'Have you ever thought of looking to me to do any kind of work?'

John Baptist answered with that peculiar back-handed shake of the

right forefinger which is the most expressive negative in the Italian

language. 'No! You knew from the first moment when you saw me here, that I was a

gentleman?' 'ALTRO!' returned John Baptist, closing his eyes and giving his head a

most vehement toss. The word being, according to its Genoese emphasis,

a confirmation, a contradiction, an assertion, a denial, a taunt,

a compliment, a joke, and fifty other things, became in the present

instance, with a significance beyond all power of written expression,

our familiar English 'I believe you!' 'Haha! You are right!




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