inter.
Therefore I say, go and speak to her, for she will have you and she will
be better with you than near that apoplexy of a San Miniato."

Ruggiero did not answer at once, but pulled out his pipe and filled it
and began to smoke.

"Why should I speak?" he asked at last. There was a struggle in his
mind, for he did not wish to tell Bastianello outright that he did not
really care for Teresina. If he betrayed this fact it would be hard
hereafter to account for his own state, which was too apparent to be
concealed, especially from his brother, and he had no idea that the
latter loved the girl.

"Why should you speak?" asked Bastianello, repeating the words, and
stirring the ashes in his pipe with the point of his knife. "Because if
you do not speak you will never get anything."

"It will be the same if I do," observed Ruggiero stolidly.

"I believe that very little," returned the other. "And I will tell you
something. If I were to speak to Teresina for you and say, 'Here is my
brother Ruggiero, who is not a great signore, but is well grown and has
two arms which are good, and a matter of seven or eight hundred francs
in the bank, and who is very fond of you, but he does not know how to
say it. Think well if you will have him,' I would say, 'and if you will
not, give me an honest answer and God bless you and let it be the end.'
That is how I would speak, and she would think about it for a week or
perhaps two, and then she would say to me, 'Bastianello, tell your
brother that I will have him.' Or else she would say, 'Bastianello, tell
your brother that I thank him, but that I have no heart in it.' That is
what she would say."

"It may be," said Ruggiero carelessly. "But of course she would thank,
and say 'Who is this Ruggiero?' and besides, the world is full of
women."

Bastianello was about to ask the interpretation of this rather
enigmatical speech when there was a stir on the pier and two or three
boats put out, the men standing in them and sculling them stern
foremost.

"Who is it?" asked Bastianello of the boatman who passed nearest to him.

"The Giovannina," answered the man.

She had returned from her last voyage to Calabria, having taken macaroni
from Amalfi and bringing back wine of Verbicaro. A fine boat, the
Giovannina, able to carry twenty tons in any weather, and water-tight
too, being decked with hatches over which you can stretch and batten
down tarpaulin. A pretty sight as she ran up to the e