companion--"what a desperate liking your folks have for saints,
Philip-o, that they must even call their money after them."

"It not so in America, Signor Bolto?" asked the Genoese, after he had
explained his wishes to Benedetta, in Italian; "It no ze fashion in your
country to honor ze saints?"

"Honor the saints!" repeated Ithuel, looking curiously round him, as he
took a seat at a third table, shoving aside the glasses at the same
time, and otherwise disposing of everything within reach of his hand, so
as to suit his own notions of order, and then leaning back on his chair
until the two ends of the uprights dug into the plaster behind him,
while the legs on which the fabric was poised cracked with his weight;
"honor the saints! we should be much more like to dishonor them! What
does any one want to honor a saint for? A saint is but a human--a man
like you and me, after all the fuss you make about 'em. Saints abound in
my country, if you'd believe people's account of themselves."

"Not quite so, Signor Bolto. You and me no great saint. Italian honor
saint because he holy and good."

By this time Ithuel had got his two feet on the round of his seat, his
knees spread so as to occupy as much space as an unusual length of leg
would permit, and his arms extended on the tops of two chairs, one on
each side of him, in a way to resemble what is termed a spread eagle.

Andrea Barrofaldi regarded all this with wonder. It is true, he expected
to meet with no great refinement in a wine-house like that of Benedetta;
but he was unaccustomed to see such nonchalance of manner in a man of
the stranger's class, or, indeed, of any class; the Italian mariners