usual manner."

So we looked at all the carts we met that were not going too fast. On
one of them Garibaldi was landing at Marsala and overcoming the Bourbons
at Calatafimi; on another Cristoforo Colombo was receiving a bag of gold
from Ferdinand and Isabella, who wanted to put an end to all this wearing
delay about the discovery of America; on another Don Jose was being made
a fool of by Carmen in the wine-shop of Lillas Pastia; we saw the
enthusiasm of the Crusaders on catching sight of Jerusalem; Otello was
smothering Desdemona; we saw the Rape of the Sabines and somebody before
the Soldan. But none of these pictures threw any light on S. Alfio.

Peppino Di Gregorio said we must have patience. So we patiently turned
down another street and saw King Ruggero dismissing the ambassadors:
"Return at once to your Lord and tell him that we Sicilians are not--"
something for which the artist had left so little room that it was
illegible, but the noble attitude of King Ruggero conveyed the meaning:
we saw Mazeppa bound to a white horse rushing through a rocky wood and
frightening the lions and tigers; Etna was in eruption; banners were
being blessed by the Pope; Musolino was tripping over that cursed wire
and being taken by the carabinieri; Paolo and Francesca were abandoning
the pursuit of literature in favour of an eternity of torment--anything
rather than go on reading in that book. Still there was nothing about S.
Alfio.

They then proposed a visit to the workshop of a man who earns his living
by painting carts. We found him at work on the birth of Rinaldo who came
into the world with his right hand closed. The doctors and nurses were
standing round, wondering; they all tried but they could do nothing.
After eight days the baby, yielding to the incessant caresses of his
adorata mamma, opened his fist and lo! it contained a scrap of paper with
his name--Rinaldo--written upon it.

We begged the artist to show us a cart with the Life of S. Alfio, or the
designs for such a life. And he could not. He said such carts were rare
and he had no designs; when asked to paint the story of S. Alfio he does
it out of his head, putting in anything that his patrons particularly
order. We asked how old he makes the saints and he replied that his
instructions usually are to make them about sixteen. So that the carts,
if we could find them, would not be evidence of anything but the
well-known habit of artists to flatter their s