and I said they would be quite enough for supper--with the sparrows--and
he finally agreed that we had better do nothing, it might look as though
we thought the brigadier was not up to his business.

"And when the tailor is wearing a coat that does not fit him," said
Angelo, "it is rude to tell him of it."

So we drove on among the cistus bushes and I asked him about the lottery.
Every Saturday morning ninety cards numbered from one to ninety are put
into a wheel of fortune and a blind-folded child from the orphan asylum
publicly draws out five. Italy is divided into several districts and a
drawing takes place in the chief town of each, the winning numbers are
telegraphed to the lottery offices all over the country and afterwards
posted up and published in the newspapers. Any one wishing to try his
luck chooses one or more numbers and buys a ticket and this choosing of
the numbers is a very absorbing business. In the neighbourhood of
Castelvetrano at that time the favourite numbers were five and twenty-six
and the people were betting on those numbers when they had no special
reason for choosing any others. Angelo could not tell why these two
numbers were preferred, he could only say that the people found them
sympathetic and, as a matter of fact, twenty-six had come out the day
before. There are many ways of choosing a number if you find five and
twenty-six unsympathetic; you can wait till something remarkable happens
to you, look it out in "the useful book that knows" and then bet on its
number, for everything really remarkable has a number in the book and, if
you do not possess a copy, it can be consulted in a shop as the _Post
Office Directory_ can be consulted in London. Or, if nothing remarkable
happens to you in real life, perhaps you may have dreamt of a lady in a
white dress, or of a man whetting a scythe, or of meeting a snake in the
road--anything will do, so long as it strikes you at the time. When you
see the country people coming into town on market day you may be sure
that each one has received instructions from relations and friends at
home to put something on a number for them.

Some make a practice of gambling every week, others only try their luck
when they have a few spare soldi, others only when they have witnessed
something irresistibly striking. A favourite way of choosing a number is
to get into conversation with certain old monks who have a reputation for
spotting winners, if I may so s