Golden Stories Part 14

And Luigi's arms and back ached so that each night Vincenza had to rub them with the oil which now cost ten cents more in the shop of Biaggio.

On the Sixth day Luigi refused to go.

"I tell thee it is a stupidness--to stand all day with the pain in the back. For what? Fifty cents. It is a work for old men and children----"

"But thou canst not make the money, sitting in thy chair, with thy feet on the stove, like now----"

"Dost thou wish then that I have every night the knives in my back? If so----"

"Not so, caro, but----"

"Listen. You understand nothing and talk as a woman. A lady comes to my house. She says--you have no work, here is money. Then she comes and says--here is work. But at this work I make not so much as before she gave; and in addition, I have the pain in the back. Ecco, when she comes again, I no longer have the work. It is her job to give away the money.

She is not a fool, that Lady in Brown Fur. It is that I make her a kindness. Not so?"

"As thou sayest," and Vincenza went on with her endless was.h.i.+ng.

But when the week pa.s.sed and the Lady in Brown Fur did not come, Luigi's forehead wrinkled with the effort to understand. When the second had gone, Luigi was openly troubled. When the third was half over, he again took his hat and went over to the shop of Biaggio.

As before Biaggio listened attentively, his eyes closed, until Luigi had finished. Then he opened them, made a clicking noise with his tongue, and laid one finger along the side of his nose.

"Holy Body of Christ," he said softly, "in business thou hast the head like a rock. In one curl of thy Vincenza there is more sense than in all thy great body. Did I not tell thee to be careful, and it would stop only when thou didst wish. And now, without to ask my advice, you make the stupidness, bah----"

"Ma, Dio mio," Luigi's hands made angry protest against the invective of Biaggio, "I said only like a man of sense. It is her job, it make no difference----"

"Blood of the Lamb! Thou hast been in America eight months, and thou dost not know that they are mad, all quite mad, to work? Never do they stop. 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. 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.

"Of course--it--is--possible--you have made a--mistake--but----"

Luigi leaned forward eagerly. "It is possible then to----"

"All things are possible," Biaggio nodded his head at the sausages, blinking like a large, fat owl. Then he stopped.

"Perhaps, you will tell--to me," Luigi was forced to it at last.

Biaggio gave a little grunt as if he were being brought back from a deep meditation. "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. 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 att.i.tude of distant oracle, and leaned close. "Thou hast made a mistake, but it is not too late. If thou dost wish I will write it for thee."

"If thou sayest," replied Luigi and now it was his turn to gaze at the strings of garlic, "if you will do this favor."

"With pleasure," Biaggio's fat hands made little gestures of willingness to oblige. "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.

"Between friends," echoed Luigi, and added to himself, "closer than the skin of a snake art thou--friend."

The Lady in the Brown Fur came next day. She had been very angry and disappointed in Luigi, too angry and disappointed to go near him. Now she felt very sorry and uncomfortable when she saw his right leg stretched out before, so stiff that he could not bend it. 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. There was a look of real sorrow in his dark eyes as he slipped a s.h.i.+ny quarter across the counter. "She left only two," he explained, "the reason I do not know. Perhaps next time----"

"It is nothing, nothing between friends." Biaggio slipped the quarter into the cigar box under the counter and smiled a fat smile at Luigi.

But he did not hold the door open when Luigi went, and his little eyes were hard like gimlet points. "So," he whispered softly. "So. One learns quickly, very quickly in this new country. Only two dollars this time.

Bene, Gino mio, the price of sausage, as that of oil, goes up--between friends."

VIII

THE HAMMERPOND BURGLARY

The Story of an Artist

By H.G. WELLS

IT is a moot point whether burglary is to be considered as a sport, a trade, or an art. For a trade the technique is scarcely rigid enough, and its claims to be considered an art are vitiated by the mercenary element that qualifies triumphs. On the whole it seems to be most justly ranked as sport, a sport for which no rules are at present formulated, and of which the prizes are distributed in an extremely informal manner.

It was this informality of burglary that led to the regrettable extinction of two promising beginners at Hammerpond Park.

The stakes offered in this affair consisted chiefly of diamonds and other personal _bric-a-brac_ belonging to the newly married Lady Aveling. Lady Aveling, as the reader will remember, was the only daughter of Mrs. Montague Pangs, the well-known hostess. Her marriage to Lord Aveling was extensively advertised in the papers, the quant.i.ty and quality of her wedding presents, and the fact that the honeymoon was to be spent at Hammerpond. The announcement of these valuable prizes created a considerable sensation in the small circle in which Mr. Teddy Watkins was the undisputed leader, and it was decided that, accompanied by a duly qualified a.s.sistant, he should visit the village of Hammerpond in his professional capacity.

Being a man of naturally retiring and modest disposition, Mr. Watkins determined to make his visit _incog_, and, after due consideration of the conditions of his enterprise, he selected the role of a landscape artist, and the una.s.suming surname of Smith. He preceded his a.s.sistant, who, it was decided, should join him only on the last afternoon of his stay at Hammerpond. Now the village of Hammerpond is perhaps one of the prettiest little corners in Suss.e.x; many thatched houses still survive, the flint-built church, with its tall spire nestling under the down, is one of the finest and least restored in the county, and the beech-woods and bracken jungles through which the road runs to the great house are singularly rich in what the vulgar artist and photographer call "bits."

So that Mr. Watkins, on his arrival with two virgin canvases, a brand-new easel, a paint-boy, portmanteau, an ingenious little ladder made in sections; (after the pattern of that lamented master, Charles Peace), crowbar, and wire coils, found himself welcomed with effusion and some curiosity by half a dozen other brethren of the brush. It rendered the disguise he had chosen unexpectedly plausible, but it inflicted upon him a considerable amount of aesthetic conversation for which he was very imperfectly prepared.

"Have you exhibited very much?" said young Porson in the bar-parlor of the "Coach and Horses," where Mr. Watkins was skilfully acc.u.mulating local information on the night of his arrival.

"Very little," said Mr. Watkins; "just a snack here and there."

"Academy?"

"In course. _And_ at the Crystal Palace."

"Did they hang you well?" said Porson.