said this because I was beginning to feel it
was time that something of the kind should come from me. Sicilians are
not only polite in themselves, but the cause that politeness or an
attempt at it, is in other men; and this was the best I could do at the
moment in their manner. Knowing I was among experts, I had not much fear
as to their reception of my little compliment, just as a student of the
violin is less nervous when performing before a master of the instrument
than before the general public. The brigadier and his guards accepted it
as though it were of the finest quality, and even complimented me upon
it.

After supper there came a large moth which fluttered about the lamp; one
of the guards called it a "farfalla notturna," a nocturnal butterfly, and
said it had come to bring us good fortune. Another of the men, who was
of a sceptical temperament, said it might be so, but that in matters of
this kind one never can be sure what one's fortune would have been if the
moth had not come. I said that if there was to be any good fortune for
me I should like it to take the form of curing the cold which, for my
sins, I had caught that morning as I came out of the sanctuary. The
guard who believed in the moth--after returning my compliment about the
cooking by saying I must be wrong to talk about my sins, for he was sure
I had never committed any--said that as to the kind of luck the moth
would bring, Fortune would not submit to dictation, the most I could do
to control her would be to look out farfalla notturna in the book and put
a few soldi on the number in the next lottery. I told him I had had
enough of the lottery at Castelvetrano. The brigadier was interested, so
I told him about it and said I was afraid the reason I had lost was that
my numbers had nothing to do with anything that had happened to me during
the week. He confirmed what Peppino had said and added that he was
always very careful about the choosing of his numbers.

"But surely," I said, "you do not always win when you follow that rule?"

"I have played every week for twenty years," said the brigadier, "and
have only won four times; but I always hope."

"One can hope," I said, "without spending any soldi."

Here the guard who believed in the moth interposed, seeing that I did not
know much about it--

"It is no use hoping unless you do something. It would be absurd to hope
for two hundred and fifty francs next week unless you encouraged F