honesty, signorina?  Not at all.  Don’t even suspect that you won’t appreciate Luigi by-and-by.  So, you won’t ask me a word, signorina, but up you go to the maestro:—­signorina, I swear I am your faithful servant —­up to the maestro, and down first.  Come down first not last:—­first.  Let the other one come down after you; and you come down first.  Leave her behind, la Lazzeruola; and here, ’Luigi displayed a black veil, the common head-dress of the Milanese women, and twisted his fingers round and round on his forehead to personate the horns of the veil; ’take it, signorina; you know how to wear it.  Luigi and the saints watch over you.’  Vittoria found herself left in possession of the veil and a packet of chocolate.

‘If I am watched over by the saints and Luigi,’ she thought, and bit at the chocolate.

When the door had closed upon her, Luigi resumed his station near it, warily casting his glances along the house-fronts, and moving his springy little legs like a heath-cock alert.  They carried him sharp to an opposite corner of the street at a noise of some one running exposed to all eyes right down the middle of the road, straight to the house:  in which foolish person he discerned Beppo, all of whose proceedings Luigi observed and commented on from the safe obscurity under eaves and starlight, while Beppo was in the light of the lamps.  ’You thunder at the door, my Beppo.  You are a fire-balloon:  you are going to burn yourself up with what you carry.  You think you can do something, because you read books and frequent the talking theatres—­fourteen syllables to a word.  Mother of heaven! will you never learn anything from natural intelligence?  There you are, in at the door.  And now you will disturb the signorina, and you will do nothing but make la Lazzeruola’s ears lively.  Bounce! you are up the stairs.  Bounce! you are on the landing.  Thrum! you drum at the door, and they are singing; they don’t hear you.  And now you’re meek as a mouse.  That’s it—­if you don’t hit the mark when you go like a bullet, you ’re stupid as lead.  And they call you a clever fellow!  Luigi’s day is to come.  When all have paid him all round, they will acknowledge Luigi’s worth.  You are honest enough, my Beppo; but you might as well be a countryman.  You are the signorina’s servant, but I know the turnings, said the rat to the cavaliere weazel.’

In a few minutes Beppo stepped from the house, and flung himself with his back against the lintel of the doorway.

‘That looks like determination to stop on guard,’ said Luigi.

He knew the exact feeling expressed by it, when one has come violently on an errand and has done no good.

‘A flea, my feathery lad, will set you flying again.’

As it was imperative in Luigi’s schemes that Beppo should be set flying again, he slipped away stealthily, and sped fast into the neighbouring Corso, where a light English closed carriage, drawn by a pair of the island horses, moved at a slow pace.  Two men were on the driver’s seat, one of whom Luigi hailed to come down then he laid a strip of paper on his knee, and after thumping on the side of his nose to get a notion of English-Italian, he wrote with a pencil, dancing upon one leg all the while for a balance:—­