house, perhaps. He might have done much worse, and spent the night at the
hotel, as we did.

The next morning at four o'clock, when we start, he is on the box again,
nibbling bread and cheese, and glancing furtively back at us to say good
morning. He has little twinkling black eyes, just like a mouse, and a
sharp moustache, and sharp tuft on his chin--as like Victor Emanuel's as a
mouse's tuft can be.

The cold morning air seems to shrivel him, and he crouches into a little
gelid ball on the seat beside the driver, while we wind along the Po on
the smooth gray road; while the twilight lifts slowly from the distances
of field and vineyard; while the black boats of the Po, with their gaunt
white sails, show spectrally through the mists; while the trees and the
bushes break into innumerable voice, and the birds are glad of another day
in Italy; while the peasant drives his mellow-eyed, dun oxen afield; while
his wife comes in her scarlet bodice to the door, and the children's faces
peer out from behind her skirts; while the air freshens, the east flushes,
and the great miracle is wrought anew.

Once again, before we reach the ferry of the Po, the Mouse leaps down and
disappears as mysteriously as at Rovigo. We see him no more till we meet
in the station on the other side of the river, where we hear him
bargaining long and earnestly with the ticket-seller for a third-class
passage to Bologna. He fails to get it, I think, at less than the usual
rate, for he retires from the contest more shrunken and forlorn than ever,
and walks up and down the station, startled at a word, shocked at any
sudden noise.

For curiosity, I ask how much he paid for crossing the river, mentioning