he singer's
voice redeemed and made music of them all. He was practising his songs
for use at the hotels, where he sang and played the banjo in the
evenings, to add to his income. He told Peter that he was, at the moment,
ruined.

"In Engliss," he translated, "stony-broke." A shop he had kept in Genoa
had failed, so he was thrown upon the roads.

"You too are travelling, without a home, for gain?" he inferred. "You are
one of us other unfortunates, you and the little child. Poor little one!"

"Oh, he likes it," said Peter. "So do I. We don't want a home. This is
better."

"Not so bad," Livio admitted, "when one can live. But we should like to
make our fortunes, isn't it so?"

Peter said he didn't know. There seemed so little prospect of it that the
question was purely academical.

They were coming to Castoleto. Livio stopped, and proceeded to pay
attention to his personal appearance, moistening a fragment of
yesterday's "Corriere della Sera" in his mouth, and applying it with
vigour to his dusty boots. When they shone to his satisfaction, he
produced from his pocket a comb and a minute hand-mirror, and arranged
his crisp waves of dark hair to a gentlemanly neatness. Then he replaced
his pseudo-panama hat, with the slight inclination to the left side that
seemed to him suitable, re-tied his pale blue tie, and passed the mirror
to Peter, who went through similar operations.

"Castoleto will be gay for the _festa_," Livio said. "Things doing," he
interpreted; adding, "Christopher Columbus born there; found America.
Very big man; yes, _sir_."

Peter said he supposed so.

Livio added, resuming his own tongue, "Santa Caterina da Siena visited
Castoleto. Are you a Christian?"

"Oh, well," said Peter, who found the subject difficult, and was not good
at thinking out difficult things. Livio nodded. "One doesn't want much
church, of course; that's best for the women. But so many English aren't
Christians at all, but heretics."

They came into Castoleto, which is a small place where the sea washes a
shingly shore just below the town, and the narrow streets smell of fish
and other things. Livio waved his hand towards a large new hotel that
stood imposingly on the hill just behind the town.

"There we will go this evening, I with my music, you with your
embroideries." That seemed a good plan. Till then they separated, Livio
going to try his fortune at the fair, and Peter and Thomas and Francesco
and Suor Clara (the d