of every month, and how jolly quiet he kept about them. I also noticed
that he used to disappear for a day or two after their receipt, and return
very sleepy and replete, with but scant appetite for dry bread and
potatoes."

At this point Mori, the greasy Neapolitan youth, blinked his eyes and
laughed foolishly. He seemed neither ashamed of himself nor indignant at
his companions, merely sluggishly amused.

"Well," continued Meneghino, "that letter was just due, and I intercepted
it. It contained one hundred and eighty francs; would you believe me? and
that went some way to get us over here. Altogether we managed to collect
sufficient money to carry us to the Belgian frontier, and for our passage
across from Ostend. But that tramp across Belgium, _dio boia_!"

Here a clamour of voices interrupted Beppe, as each one of the travellers
chimed in with a separate account of the horrors of that ghastly tramp
across country in mid-winter.

For many years Europe had not experienced such an inclement season.
Everywhere the cold counted innumerable victims. Along the country
highways and byways people dropped down frozen to death, and the paths
were strewn with the carcasses of dead birds and other animals who had
succumbed to the inclemency of the elements. All the great rivers were
frozen over, and traffic had to be suspended along them. Unwonted numbers
of starving sea-gulls and other sea-birds flocked to London in search of
human charity, for the very fishes could not withstand the cold, and the
inhospitable ocean afforded food no longer to its winged hosts. All Europe
was under snow; the railways were blocked in many places, and ordinary
work had to be suspended in the great cities; business was at a