toward him, and
perceiving a disengaged table next to his, I drew a chair to it and sat
down He looked at me in differently over the top of his newspaper--but
there was nothing specially attractive in the sight of a white-haired
man wearing smoke-colored spectacles, and he resumed his perusal of the
"Figaro" immediately. I rapped the end of my walking-cane on the table
and summoned a waiter from whom I ordered coffee. I then lighted a
cigar, and imitating Ferrari's easy posture, smoked also. Something in
my attitude then appeared to strike him, for he laid down his paper and
again looked at me, this time with more interest and something of
uneasiness. "Ca commence, mon ami!" I thought, but I turned my head
slightly aside and feigned to be absorbed in the view. My coffee was
brought--I paid for it and tossed the waiter an unusually large
gratuity--he naturally found it incumbent upon him to polish my table
with extra zeal, and to secure all the newspapers, pictorial or
otherwise, that were lying about, for the purpose of obsequiously
depositing them in a heap at my right hand. I addressed this amiable
garcon in the harsh and deliberate accents of my carefully disguised
voice.

"By the way, I suppose you know Naples well?"

"Oh, si, signor!"

"Ebbene, can you tell me the way to the house of one Count Fabio
Romani, a wealthy nobleman of this city?"

Ha! a good hit this time! Though apparently not looking at him I saw
Ferrari start as though he had been stung, and then compose himself in
his seat with an air of attention. The waiter meanwhile, in answer to
my question, raised his hands, eyes and shoulders all together with a
shrug expressive of resigned melancholy.

"Ah, gran Dio! e morto!"

"Dead!" I exclaimed, with a pretended start of shocked surprise. "So
young? Impossible!"

"Eh! what will you, signor? It was la pesta; there was no remedy. La
pesta cares nothing for youth or age, and spares neither rich nor poor."

For a moment I leaned my head on my hand, affecting to be overcome by
the suddenness of the news. Then looking up, I said, regretfully:

"Alas! I am too late! I was a friend of his father's. I have been away
for many years, and I had a great wish to meet the young Romani whom I
last saw as a child. Are there any relations of his living--was he
married?"

The waiter, whose countenance had assumed a fitting lugubriousness in
accordance with what he imagined were my feelings, brightened up
immedia