ve been
out all night.... A telegram," he threatened, "would bring the mistress
back to Rome."

"Forgive me, old friend," said Asabri, and he leaned on Luigi's
shoulder; "but I have fallen in love...."

"What!" screamed the valet. "At your age?"

"It is quite true," said Asabri, a little sadly, "that at my age a man
most easily falls in love--with life."

"You shall go to bed at once," said Luigi sternly. "I shall prepare a
hot lemonade, and you shall take five grains of quinine.... You are
damp.... The mist from the Campagna...."

Asabri yawned in the ancient servitor's face.

"Luigi," he said, "I think I shall buy you a farm and a wife; or a barge
and a wife...."

"You do, do you?" said Luigi. "And I think you'll take your quinine like
a Trojan, or I'll know the reason why."

"Everybody regards me as rather an important person," complained Asabri,
"except you."

"You were seven years old," said Luigi, "when I came to serve you. I
have aged. But you haven't. You didn't know enough then to come in when
it rained, as the Americans say. You don't now. I would not speak of
this to others. But to you--yes--for your own good."

Asabri smiled blissfully.

"In all the world," he said, "there is only one thing for a man to fear,
that he will learn to take the world seriously; in other words, that he
will grow up.... You may bring the hot lemonade and the quinine when
they are ready."

And then he blew his nose of a Roman emperor; for he had indeed
contracted a slight cold.

End of Project Gutenberg's IT and Other Stories, by Gouverneur Morris

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