out of Porta Salara, and though I owed no man anything I had no money, and no prospect of any for some time.  And yet I could not leave home on a long journey without at least two hundred scudi in my pocket.  A scudo is a dollar, and a dollar has five francs, so that I wanted a thousand francs.  You see, in spite of the baron’s hint about the mountains, I thought I might have to travel all over Italy before I satisfied Nino.

A thousand francs is a great deal of money,—­it is a Peru, as we say.  I had not the first sou toward it.  I thought a long time.  I wondered if the old piano were worth anything; whether anybody would give me money for my manuscripts, the results of patient years of labour and study; my old gold scarf pin, my seal ring, and even my silver watch, which keeps really very good time,—­what were they worth?  But it would not be much, not the tenth part of what I wanted.  I was in despair, and I tried to sleep.  Then a thought came to me.

“I am a donkey,” I said.  “There is the vineyard itself,—­my little vineyard beyond Porta Salara.  It is mine and is worth half as much again as I need.”  And I slept quietly till morning.

It is true, and I am sure it is natural, that in the daylight my resolution looked a little differently to me than it did in the quiet night.  I had toiled and scraped a great deal more than you know to buy that small piece of land, and it seemed much more my own than all Serveti had ever been in my better days.  Then I shut myself up in my room and read Nino’s letter over again, though it pained me very much; for I needed courage.  And when I had read it, I took some papers in my pocket, and put on my hat and my old cloak, which Nino will never want any more now for his midnight serenades, and I went out to sell my little vineyard.

“It is for my boy,” I said, to give myself some comfort.

But it is one thing to want to buy, and it is quite another thing to want to sell.  All day I went from one man to another with my papers,—­all the agents who deal in those things; but they only said they thought it might be sold in time; it would take many days, and perhaps weeks.

“But I want to sell it to-day,” I explained.

“We are very sorry,” said they, with a shrug of the shoulders; and they showed me the door.

I was extremely down-hearted, and though I could not sell my piece of land I spent three sous in buying two cigars to smoke, and I walked about the Piazza Colonna in the sun; I would not go home to dinner until I had decided what to do.  There was only one man I had not tried, and he was the man who had sold it to me.  Of course I knew people who do this business, for I had had enough trouble to learn their ways when I had to sell Serveti, years ago.  But this one man I had not tried yet, because I knew that he would drive a cruel bargain with me when he saw I wanted the money.  But at last I went to him and told him just what my wishes were.