eather in your hat? Are you
not a prince, not a magnate?"

"No!" howled the little one: "what, odds bodikins! cousin, don't you
know me in the least? and yet in my younger days people wanted to
flatter me by assuring me that we in some degree resembled each other:
and faith! when I come to look thus closely at your figure, your
physiognomy, your expression, your sweet smile, and those twinkling
stars in your eyes there, and when I weigh all this with scrupulous
impartiality, why, cousin Pancrazia of the house of Posaterrena in
Florence, and little Beresynth of the family of Fuocoterrestro in
Milan, are for such degrees of kin, as cousinhood, like each other
enough."

"O gemini!" screamed the old woman in delight: "so you are the
Beresynth of Milan about whom I heard so much talk in my childhood.
Hey! Hey! so am I at this late hour in the day, in the depth of old
age, to become acquainted with such a lovely cousin face to face!"

"Ay!" said the dwarf: "just nose to nose; for that great bastion
thrown up there is certainly the biggest piece of bonework in our
faces. For curiosity's sake, dear coz, let us make an experiment for
once, whether we can manage to give each other a cousinly kiss.... No,
purely impossible! the far outjutting promontories immediately begin
rattling against each other, and forclose our lowly lips from
everything like a soft meeting. We must force our noble Roman noses
aside with our two fists. So! Don't let it fly, my lady cousin! I
might come by a box on the ears that would make my last teeth tumble
out."

With a hearty laugh the hag cried: "Hey! I have not been so merry this
long time. But what did they want with you before the door there,
cousin?"

"What!" screamed the little one: "to look at me, to delight their eyes
with me, nothing more. Is not man, my highly esteemed cousin gossip, a
thoroughly silly animal? Here in Rome now have hundreds of thousands
been assembled whole months, for their Redeemer's honour, as they give
out, and to do penance for their sins and get rid of them; and the
moment I peep out of the window (I only arrived here the day before
yesterday) be it merely in my nightcap, and still more when I come
forth at full length and in my Sunday suit into the marketplace, one
can't help swearing that the whole gang of them have started out of
every hole and corner in Europe merely for my sake: they so leer, and
ogle me, and whisper, and ask questions, and laugh, and are in