lls up to him, holding up one of his gimcrack bracelets
daintily--and he thinks temptingly, poor fellow!--between his finger
and thumb. "Un franco! Un sol franco! e una beleza per una contesa!"
("One franc! only one franc! It would be beautiful on the arm of a
countess!") he murmurs in his soft lisping Venetian, which abolishes
all double consonants, and supplies their place by prolonging the soft
liquid sound of the preceding vowel. One franc! It is wonderful how
the thing, worthless as it is, can be made even by the most starving
fingers for such a price. Yet after dangling his toy for a minute, and
gazing, oh, so wistfully! the while out of his big haggard eyes, he
says, "Seventy-five centimes! half a franc!" and still lingers ere he
turns away with a sigh, a weary movement of his emaciated figure and a
longing look on his poor hollow face that make one feel that the
drama we are witnessing is not all comedy. But it is all supremely
interesting to our neighbor, Si'or Pantaleone. He has been keenly
watching the attempted deal, and no doubt wished that his countryman
might succeed. But there was no element of tragedy in the matter for
him, a condition of semi-starvation is too much an ordinary, every-day
and normal spectacle. He looked on more as a retired merchant might
look on at the progress of a bargain for the delivery of a shipload
of grain. Presently, a middle-aged woman and a girl of some fourteen
years station themselves in front of the audience seated outside the
caffe. The elder woman has a guitar, and the girl a violin and some
sheets of music in her hand. The woman has her wonderful wealth of
black hair grandly dressed and as shining as oil can make it. She
has large gilt earrings in her ears, a heavy coral necklace, and a
gaudy-colored shawl in good condition. Whatever might be beneath
and below this is in dark shadow--"et sic melius situm." She is not
starved, however, for, as she prepares to finger her guitar, she shows
a well-nourished and not ill-formed arm. The young girl has one of
those pale, delicate, oval faces so common in Venice: she also has a
good shawl--an amber-colored one--which so sets off the olive-colored
complexion of her face as to make her a perfect picture. This
couple do not in any degree assume an attitude of appealing _ad
misericordiam_. They pose themselves _en artistes_. The girl sets
about arranging her music in a business-like way, and then they play
the well-known air of "La