there is variety; I doubt whether our
English fowls could show so much. But--well, as long as you like it--"

Being rather tired after our day in the country we did not go to any
theatre, we stayed in the Birraria till bed-time talking and listening to
the music.

* * * * *

Next day was the last of the buffo's holiday, and I proposed another
excursion, but he said:

"Suppose we pretend that we have come to Catania on an excursion, and
then we can spend the day in the city. I want to buy some things to take
home with me for my sisters."

Accordingly we looked in the shop-windows and chose three ornamental
combs made of celluloid for the three sisters, a snuff-box for papa, made
of dried bergamot skin smelling so as to scent the snuff, and a pair of
braces for Gildo. It seemed a pity that the buffo should not have
something also, so he chose for himself a handkerchief with a picture of
the elephant of lava over the fountain in the piazza and he gave me in
return a metal pencil-case. Then the question of the piece of lava had
to be taken up again. We consulted the landlord, who produced a
bit--exactly what was wanted and only one franc fifty. We had been
wandering about in search of it and there it was all the time in the same
house with us.

"What on earth are you going to do with it, Buffo?"

"Why, everyone who goes to Catania brings home a piece of lava."

"Yes, but what do they want it for? It might be a neat chimney ornament,
but you have no fireplace in your house. Or you might use it as a
paper-weight, but in your family you scarcely ever write a letter."

He looked at me sadly for a moment and then said:

"I thought you were an artist and now you are being practical.
Usefulness is not everything. This piece of lava will be for me an
object of eternal beauty, and when I contemplate it I shall think of the
happy time we have spent here together."

I said: "O Buffo! don't go on like that or you will make me cry."

In the evening we went to the Teatro Machiavelli and saw a performance by
living players. In the first act a good young man introduced Rosina to
the cavaliere, who congratulated him on having won the affections of so
virtuous and lovely a girl. The cavaliere gave a bad old woman one
hundred francs, and in return she promised to procure him an interview
with Rosina. The bad old woman persuaded Rosina to enter a house in
which we knew the cavaliere wa