aid Peppino in conclusion, "was containing one
bottle. Did you understand? All right; I give you a medal."

"I hope it will be a real medal and not like the idea of the girl."

"We shall see. Please take to drink the milk of Ricuzzu."

The baby had had one bottle of milk, but there was another ready for him.
I said:

"My dear Peppino, I could not eat or drink another mouthful of anything.
I could not even eat a slice of Ricuzzu himself; besides, I don't believe
Carmelo knows how to cook babies--not so as to make them really tasty."

Brancaccia understood enough to know we were talking about Ricuzzu. She
left off clearing away, and snatched the baby out of Carmelo's arms,
whispering to me: "I know it is all right, but I shall feel safer if I
have him."

Peppino, who was lying on his back, observed her agitation out of the
corner of his eye and said to me, maliciously speaking Italian so that
she should understand:

"If you would like to eat the baby, please say whether Carmelo shall boil
him or cut him up and stew him alla cacciatora."

"Thank you, no. I prefer Ricuzzu alive."

"You are a bad papa," said Brancaccia, "and the compare is a good man."

So she gave me the baby as a reward and slapped her husband's cheek as a
punishment. Peppino naturally retaliated, and in a moment they were
rolling over and over and bear-fighting like a couple of kittens at play,
while Carmelo and I sat and laughed at them, and the baby crowed and
clapped his hands and grew so excited I could scarcely hold him.

There came a pause and Peppino said: "My dear, if you will leave off
boxing my ears I will tell you a secret."

Brancaccia instantly desisted and went and sat apart to recover herself.

Peppino continued: "I knew the compare would refuse to eat the baby. He
does not like our Sicilian dishes. Every time he comes to see us it is a
penitenza for him, because he cannot eat food grown in our island. But I
know what I shall do. I shall send a telegram to London: 'English
gentleman starving in Castellinaria. Please send at once one chop, one
bottle of stout.'

"Look here," he continued, suddenly sitting up and becoming serious. "It
is the clime. Here is the country not adapted to the beast, few rain,
few grass, few beefs, few muttons, and all too thin and the land is good
only for the goats and we must be eating such things that are doing bad
to the stomaco--the little chickens and the poor fishes and the
pasta