y, as this dagger-thrust struck home to my
heart. "I only knew him when he was quite a boy. He seemed to me then
of a warm and loving temperament, generous to a fault, perhaps
over-credulous, yet he promised well. His father thought so, I confess
I thought so too. Reports have reached me from time to time of the care
with which he managed the immense fortune left to him. He gave large
sums away in charity, did he not? and was he not a lover of books and
simple pleasures?"

"Oh, I grant you all that!" returned Ferrari, with some impatience. "He
was the most moral man in immoral Naples, if you care for that sort of
thing. Studious--philosophic--parfait gentilhomme--proud as the devil,
virtuous, unsuspecting, and--withal--a fool!"

My temper rose dangerously--but I controlled it, and remembering my
part in the drama I had constructed, I broke into violent, harsh
laughter.

"Bravo!" I exclaimed. "One can easily see what a first-rate young
fellow YOU are! You have no liking for moral men--ha, ha! excellent! I
agree with you. A virtuous man and a fool are synonyms nowadays. Yes--I
have lived long enough to know that! And here is our coffee--behold
also the glorias! I drink your health with pleasure, Signor
Ferrari--you and I must be friends!"

For one moment he seemed startled by my sudden outburst of mirth--the
next, he laughed heartily himself, and as the waiter appeared with the
coffee and cognac, inspired by the occasion, he made an equivocal,
slightly indelicate joke concerning the personal charms of a certain
Antoinetta whom the garcon was supposed to favor with an eye to
matrimony. The fellow grinned, in nowise offended--and pocketing fresh
gratuities from both Ferrari and myself, departed on new errands for
other customers, apparently in high good humor with himself,
Antoinetta, and the world in general. Resuming the interrupted
conversation I said:

"And this poor weak-minded Romani--was his death sudden?"

"Remarkably so," answered Ferrari, leaning back in his chair, and
turning his handsome flushed face up to the sky where the stars were
beginning to twinkle out one by ones "it appears from all accounts that
he rose early and went out for a walk on one of those insufferably hot
August mornings, and at the furthest limit of the villa grounds he came
upon a fruit-seller dying of cholera. Of course, with his quixotic
ideas, he must needs stay and talk to the boy, and then run like a
madman through the heat int