its owner, was the house called--busy in preparing
and cleaning the specimens that were about to be transferred into the
shop, lurked, like some keen-eyed tarantula, the industrious _Coco_
himself, with such an eye to business, and such an ear, that we were no
sooner turned in from the street than he, too, had turned in, and was
beside us.--"Well, Coco, _bon giorrio_, &c. &c. &c., 'tis said you have
become an _honest_ man at last; how does this _new_ trade answer?" "Not
at all," sighed the old man behind us. "Nonsense!" rejoined Coco;
"whoever heard of a man's making money all at once? Nothing stake,
nothing make--there's no mending where there's no spending. '_Necesse
est facere sumptum qui quaerit lucrum_, dice bene il Plauto.'" "Allegro
though you be, Coco, I am not. With you nothing can go ill, for you have
nothing to lose, either in money or in character; but to me, who am old,
bankruptcy and a prison are not matters of jest." "Nonsense, again, you
are not going to prison _yet_!" "Not _at all_, I hope, Coco," said the
poor little lazy woman in the corner. "If I had my 5000 ducats, and my
vineyard, again, at Sorrento, that you persuaded me to sell for your
_Scavi_ at Calvi, which never brought me any thing but a few lamps, and
_lots of lachrymatories_!" "Basta, 'tis too late to talk about what you
_would do_ if you had it to do over again. Let bygones be bygones. Who
knows what this gentleman may come to buy of us? and he never would have
come to you but from his previous acquaintance with _me_. Isn't it so,
sir? Ah, there are some pretty things _there_," continued he, following
our eyes into a placarded recess. "Antichi Sono?" and we look into his
face; "I'd as lief sell my own flesh and blood, as any thing _here_ that
was not. Think, sir, of my position. I am the _responsible_ head of this
firm. That good old gentleman, having begun antiquities late in life,
does not know much about them. The signora there has taste, plenty; but
it is not a lady's business to know the prices of things she may value
or take an interest in; for suppose, now, she should wish to make money
by the sale of _Coco_, she would hardly know what to ask for him." The
old man fidgeted; Coco shot a glance at the blue spectacles, which were
raised at this sally. But the signora, who sat behind them, said
nothing. "Whence came these same things?" we inquire, for on going close
up to them, they seemed not unfamiliar to us. Before Coco could coin the