le red shoes in his hand. "I would not
have had that come to pass for twenty gold ducats. But, Lord! who'd 'a
thought it of a Court spark, that he should be as good as his word? Not
I, used to Courts as a man may be." He fell to scratching his head.

"Hey, hey!" he cried, as there was a prodigious scuffling up the
chimney. "Now he strangles, now he strangles!" A shower of soot came
down. Beppo flacked about the room; then two heavy objects fell. Beppo
crept up. "Mary Virgin, he's killing birds," he said, in an awed
whisper, and picked up two owls with wagging heads. The recesses of the
chimney were still very lively. "Eh, there he is again," said the old
sweep. "What now?" Down came a rat, squeaking for its life, then three
in succession, very silent because their necks were wrung. "This is
better than a cat any day of the seven," said Sor Beppo. "What a diamond
of a poet! He should be crowned with laurel-twigs if I were Duke Borso
in all his glory. Being but Beppo the sweep, he shall be free of my
mystery the moment he's free of my chimney-stack."

He could await Angioletto's coming now with equal mind. The lad had
approved himself. I leave you to judge of the welcome he got when,
breathless, scratched, and sable as the night, he showed his white teeth
at the door. Beppo, in fact, fell weeping on his neck. By this simple
device Angioletto was enabled to keep his word, and Bellaroba to find
him black but comely.

VII

THE CAPTAIN'S TREADINGS

While Angioletto and his Bellaroba dwelt in a paradise, none the less
glorious for being as sooty as the darkness which veiled it, the estate
of Captain Mosca, that hungry swordsman, was most unhappy. Divorced from
bed and board, cast off by his mistress, and not yet adopted by his
master, the poor man felt dimly about for supports, conscious that his
treadings had well-nigh slipped. At such a time the gentle eyes of
Bellaroba--nobody's enemy--courted him, like a beam of firelight on a
rain-scoured street, with a smiling invitation to share the peace within
doors. He hung uneasily about the gateways in these days, cold-elbowed
by the lackeys, ignored by the higher sort, unseen by the quality; he
burnished the lintels with his shoulder-blades, chewed many straws,
counted the flagstones, knew the hours by the signals of his stomach.
Then, if by hazard Bellaroba should come dancing by with a "Good
morning, Signor Capitano," a "_Come sta?_" or, prettier still, a bright
"_