I give him roast veal for his luncheon, and he says to me,
'Marietta, this fowl has no wings.' But everyone knows, your
Mercy, that veal is not a fowl. How should veal have wings?"

"How indeed?" assented Beatrice, on a note of commiseration.
And if the corners of her mouth betrayed a tendency to curve
upwards, she immediately compelled them down. "But perhaps he
does not speak Italian very well?" she suggested.

"Mache, Potenza! Everyone speaks Italian," cried Marietta.

"Indeed?" said Beatrice.

"Naturally, your Grace--all Christians," Marietta declared.

"Oh, I did n't know," said Beatrice, meekly. "Well," she
acknowledged, "since he speaks Italian, it is certainly
unreasonable of him to call veal a fowl."

"But that, Magnificence," Marietta went on, warming to her
theme, "that is only one of his simplicities. He asks me, 'Who
puts the whitewash on Monte Sfiorito? 'And when I tell him
that it is not whitewash, but snow, he says, 'How do you know?'
But everyone knows that it is snow. Whitewash!"

The sprightly old woman gave her whole body a shake, for the
better exposition of her state of mind. And thereupon, from
the interior of her basket, issued a plaintive little squeal.

"What have you in your basket?" Beatrice asked.