repeat the name and
address to make sure he had it quite right. The Lady in Brown Fur was
very happy. When she went Vincenza leaned far over the banisters with
the lamp while Luigi called out in his soft, broken English, directions
for avoiding the lines of washing below and the refuse piled in dark
turns of the stairs. When the Lady in Brown Fur had disappeared Vincenza
turned to Luigi.

"Of a surety, cara, the saints are good. Never before didst thou work
before April. In the new house we will keep for ourselves two rooms.

"These people have the 'pull' even more than the alderman, Biaggio
says," replied Luigi with a dreamy look in his eyes. "It may be that
from this work I shall take three dollars each day."

"Madonna mia," gasped Vincenza, "it is beyond belief."

* * * * *

For five days Luigi stood four hours each afternoon, bent forward, to
the lifting of a cardboard block, while Hugh Keswick painted, as he had
not painted for months, the tense muscles under the olive skin, the
strong neck and shoulders. The Building of the Temple advanced rapidly.
And Luigi's arms and back ached so that each night Vincenza had to rub
them with the oil which now cost ten cents more in the shop of Biaggio.

On the Sixth day Luigi refused to go.

"I tell thee it is a stupidness--to stand all day with the pain in the
back. For what? Fifty cents. It is a work for old men and children----"

"But thou canst not make the money, sitting in thy chair, with thy feet
on the stove, like now----"

"Dost thou wish then that I have every night the knives in my back? If
so----"

"Not so, caro, but----"

"Listen. You understand nothing and talk as a woman. A lady comes to my
house. She says--you have no work, here is money. Then she comes and
says--here is work. But at this work I make not so much as before she
gave; and in addition, I have the pain in the back. Ecco, when she comes
again, I no longer have the work. It is her job to give away the money.
She is not a fool, that Lady in Brown Fur. It is that I make her a
kindness. Not so?"

"As thou sayest," and Vincenza went on with her endless washing.

But when the week passed and the Lady in Brown Fur did not come, Luigi's
forehead wrinkled with the effort to understand. When the second had
gone, Luigi was openly troubled. When the third was half over, he again
took his hat and went over to the shop of Biaggio.

As before Biaggio listened attenti