[Illustration:  Fig. 105.]

Fig. 106 is a forcible negation.  The outer ends of the fingers united in a point under the chin are violently thrust forward.  This is the rejection of an idea or proposition, the same conception being executed in several different modes by the North American Indians.

[Illustration:  Fig. 106.]

Fig. 107 signifies hunger, and is made by extending the thumb and index under the open mouth and turning them horizontally and vertically several times.  The idea is emptiness and desire to be filled.  It is also expressed by beating the ribs with the flat hands, to show that the sides meet or are weak for the want of something between them.

[Illustration:  Fig. 107.]

Fig. 108 is made in mocking and ridicule.  The open and oscillating hand touches the point of the nose with that of the thumb.  It has the particular sense of stigmatizing the person addressed or in question as a dupe.  A credulous person is generally imagined with a gaping mouth and staring eyes, and as thrusting forward his face, with pendant chin, so that the nose is well advanced and therefore most prominent in the profile.  A dupe is therefore called naso lungo or long-nose, and with Italian writers “restare con un palmo di naso”—­to be left with a palm’s length of nose—­means to have met with loss, injury, or disappointment.

[Illustration:  Fig. 108.]

The thumb stroking the forehead from one side to the other, Fig. 109, is a natural sign of fatigue, and of the physical toil that produces fatigue.  The wiping off of perspiration is obviously indicated.  This gesture is often used ironically.

[Illustration:  Fig. 109.]

As a dupe was shown above, now the duper is signified, by Fig. 110.  The gesture is to place the fingers between the cravat and the neck and rub the latter with the back of the hand.  The idea is that the deceit is put within the cravat, taken in and down, similar to our phrase to “swallow” a false and deceitful story, and a “cram” is also an English slang word for an incredible lie.  The conception of the slang term is nearly related to that of the Neapolitan sign, viz., the artificial enlargement of the oesophagus of the person victimized or on whom imposition is attempted to be practiced, which is necessary to take it down.

[Illustration:  Fig. 110.]

Fig. 111 shows the ends of the index and thumb stroking the two sides of the nose from base to point.  This means astute, attentive, ready.  Sharpness of the nasal organ is popularly associated with subtlety and finesse.  The old Romans by homo emunctae naris meant an acute man attentive to his interests.  The sign is often used in a bad sense, then signifying too sharp to be trusted.

[Illustration:  Fig. 111.]

This somewhat lengthy but yet only partial list of Neapolitan gesture-signs must conclude with one common throughout Italy, and also among us with a somewhat different signification, yet perhaps also derived from classic times.  To express suspicion of a person the forefinger of the right hand is placed upon the side of the nose.  It means tainted, not sound.  It is used to give an unfavorable report of a person inquired of and to warn against such.