of an attractive display, and that he shadowed forth his conceptions of
the beautiful in symmetrical rows of plucked chickens, presenting to the
public eye rear views embellished with a single feather erect in the tail
of each bird; that he must be, through the ethics of competition, the
sworn foe of those illogical peasants who bring dead poultry to town in
cages, like singing birds, and equally the friend of those restaurateurs
who furnish you a meal of victuals and a feather-bed in the same _mezzo-
polio arrosto_. He turned out on actual appearance to be all I had
prefigured him, with the additional merit of having a large red nose, a
sidelong, fugitive gait, and a hangdog countenance. He furnished us
poultry at rates slightly advanced, I think.

As for the boy, he turned up after a while as a constant guest, and took
possession of the kitchen. He came near banishment at one time for
catching a large number of sea-crabs in the canal, and confining them in a
basket in the kitchen, which they left at the dead hour of night, to
wander all over our house,--making a mysterious and alarming sound of
snapping, like an army of death-watches, and eluding the cunningest
efforts at capture. On another occasion, he fell into the canal before our
house, and terrified us by going under twice before the arrival of the old
gondolier, who called out to him "_Petta! petta!_" (Wait! wait!) as
he placidly pushed his boat to the spot. Developing other disagreeable
traits, Beppi was finally driven into exile, from which he nevertheless
furtively returned on holidays.

The family of Giovanna thus gradually encroaching upon us, we came also to
know her mother,--a dread and loathly old lady, whom we would willingly
have seen burned at the stake for a witch. She was commonly encountered at
nightfall in our street, where she lay in wait, as it were, to prey upon
the fragrance of dinner drifting from the kitchen windows of our neighbor,