anni Battista arose, very dignified,
and bowed to Caesar. The elder son and the two workmen in white blouses
and paper caps were busy with water and wires, cleaning a plaster mould
they had just emptied.

The mould was a big has-relief of the Way of the Cross. Giovanni
Battista permitted himself various jocose remarks about the Way of
the Cross, which his son and the other two workmen heard with
great indifference; but while he was still emptying his store of
anti-Christian irony, the voice of Signora Vittoria was heard, crying
domineeringly:

"Giovanni Battista!"

"What is it?"

"That's enough, that's enough! I can hear you from here."

"That's my wife," said Giovanni Battista, "she doesn't like me to be
lacking in respect for plaster saints." "You are a pagan!" screamed the
old woman. "You shall see, you shall see what will happen to you."

"What do you expect to have happen to me, darling?"

"Leave her alone," exclaimed the elder son, ill at ease; "you always
have to be making mother fly into a rage."

"No, my boy, no; she is the one who makes me fly into a rage."

"Giovanni Battista is used to living among gods," said Kennedy, "and he
despises saints."

"No, no," replied the cast-maker; "some saints are all right. If all
the churches had figures by Donatello or Robbia, I would go to church
oftener; but to go and look at those statues in the Jesuit churches,
those figures with their arms spread and their eyes rolling.... Oh, no!
I cannot look at such things."

Caesar could see that Giovanni Battista expressed himself very well;
but that he was not precisely a star when it came to working. After the
mould for the bas-relief was cleaned and fixed, the cast-maker invited
Caesar and Kennedy to have a glass of wine in a wine-shop near by.

"How's this, are you leaving already, father?" said Simonetta, as he
went through the shop to get to the street.

"I'm coming back, I'm coming back right away."

_SUPERSTITIONS_

The three of them went to a rather dirty tavern in the same lane,
and settled themselves by the window. This post was a good point of
observation for that narrow street, so crowded and so picturesque.

Workmen went by, and itinerant vendors, women with kerchiefs, half
head-dress and half muffler, and with black eyes and expressive faces.
Opposite was a booth of coloured candies, dried figs strung on a reed,
and various kinds of sweets.

A wine-cart passed, and Kennedy made Caesar obser