peak. You do not ask the monk for a
number outright, you engage him in conversation on general topics and as
he understands what is expected of him, though he pretends he does not,
he will presently make some such irrelevant remark as, "Do you like
flowers?" whereupon you rapidly bring the interview to a conclusion and,
if you do not know the number for "flower," you look it out in the book
and bet on it. It occurred to me that possibly that was what the
brigadier had been doing with me when he took me into his room to wash.

"Of course it was," said Angelo; "he did not really want you to wash your
hands, he wanted to get a number out of you."

"Did he get one?" said I.

"He told me to put his money on 14."

"That must have been because I said I paid 14 francs a metre for this
cloth. But he changed that afterwards."

"Yes," replied Angelo. "He thought the number that came out of your
packet of cigarettes would be better."

Angelo was not strictly right about the brigadier not wanting me to wash,
he said so merely to agree with me, for in Sicily, among those who have
not become sophisticated by familiarity with money and its little ways
nor cosmopolitanized by travel, and whose civilization remains unmodified
by northern and western customs, it is usual for the host to give his
guest an opportunity to wash after eating. Sometimes the lady of the
house has herself taken me into her bedroom, poured out the water and
held the basin while I have washed; she has then handed me the towel and
presently escorted me back to the sitting-room.

We soon overtook a man who had caught a rabbit and wanted to sell it for
a lira and a half. Angelo bargained with him for ever so long and, being
at last satisfied that the rabbit was freshly killed, bought it for a
lira and put it into the basket, saying he would cook it for supper, and
that no doubt the Madonna had sent it to make up for the loss of the
fish.

I asked him what I must do to get a ticket in the lottery for the
following Saturday. He replied that his cousin would be happy to sell me
one and, if I would settle how much to risk and what number to put it on,
he would take me to the office in the morning. I said I would risk a
lira, which he thought overdoing it, as he and his friends seldom risked
more than four or five soldi, but there was still the troublesome matter
of the number. He asked whether anything unusual had happened to me
lately, either in real li