r, because nobody would think of interfering with them. Moreover,
they get food and drink for nothing.

While the men were having supper in the inn, their carts were guarded by
their little woolly dogs, black, white, or brown, and always terribly
wide-awake and uncommonly fierce in spite of their small size.

Now, just at this time, there was one carter who had none, and Regina
knew it, for he was one of her chief admirers. He was the
hardest-drinking ruffian of all the men who came and went on the
Frascati road, and he had been quite willing to sell his dog in the
street to a gentleman who admired it and offered him fifty francs for
it, though that is a small price for a handsome "lupetto." But Mommo
happened to be deeper in debt than usual, took the money, and cast about
to steal another dog that might serve him. So far he had not seen one to
his liking.

It is the custom of the wine-carters, when they have had plenty to eat
and drink, to climb to their seats under the fan-like goat-skin hoods of
their carts, and to go to sleep, wrapped in their huge cloaks. Their
mules plod along and keep out of the way of other vehicles without any
guidance, and their dogs protect them from thieves, who might steal
their money; for they always carry the sum necessary to pay the octroi
duty at the city gates, where every cart is stopped. As they are on the
road most of their lives, winter and summer, they would not get much
sleep if they tried to keep awake all night; and they drink a good deal,
partly because wine is really a protection against the dangerous fever,
and partly because their drink costs them nothing. Some of them drank
their employers' wine at supper, others exchanged what they brought for
Paoluccio's, which they liked better.

They usually got away about midnight, and Mommo was often the last to
go. It was a part of Regina's work to go down to the cellar and draw the
wine that was wanted from the hogsheads when the host was too lazy to go
down himself, and being quite unwatched she could draw a measure from
the oldest and strongest if she chose. Mommo could easily be made a
little sleepier than usual, after being tempted to outstay the others.

And so it turned out that night. After the necessary operation of
tapping one of his casks and filling it up with water, he lingered on
before a measure of the best, while Nanna and Paoluccio dozed in their
chairs; and at last all three were asleep.

Then Regina went out