with an infant at her breast; and, more by token, she
had just put a stiletto into its father.'

'The ragazza yonder looks quite equal to the same deed,' observed the
former speaker, 'if _I_ know anything about what an eye means.'

'Vincenzio Bombici--where is Vincenzio Bombici?' cried a surly-looking
brigadier, whose large cooked-hat, set squarely on, increased the
apparent breadth of an immensely wide face.

'_Ecco mi, Eccelenza!_' whimpered out a wretched-looking object, who,
with his face bound up, and himself all swathed like Lazarus from the
tomb, came, helped forward by two assistants.

'Pass in, Vincenzio, and narrate your case,' said the brigadier, as he
opened a door into the dread chamber of justice.

While public sympathy followed the Signor Bombici into the hall
of justice, fresh expressions of anger were vented on the unhappy
strollers. Any one conversant with Italy is aware that so divided is
the peninsula by national jealousies--feuds that date from centuries
back--the most opprobrious epithet that hate or passion can employ
against any one is to stigmatise him as the native of some other town
or city. And now the mob broke into such gibes as, 'Accursed Calabrians!
Ah, vile assassins from Capri'--from Corsica, from the Abruzzi; from
anywhere, in short, save the favoured land they stood in. Donna Gaetana
was not one who suffered herself to be arraigned without reply, nor was
she remarkable for moderation in the style and manner of her
rejoinders. With a voluble ribaldry for which her nation enjoys a proud
pre-eminence, she assailed her opponents, one and all. She ridiculed
their pretensions, mocked their poverty, jeered at their cowardice,
and--last insult of all--derided their personal appearance.

Passion fed her eloquence, and the old dame vented upon them insult
after insult with a volubility that was astounding. There is no need to
record the vindictive and indecorous epithets she scattered broadcast
around her; and even as her enemies skulked craven from the field, her
wrathful indignation tracked them as they went, sending words of outrage
to bear them company. The mere numerical odds was strong against her,
and the clamour that arose was deafening, drawing crowds to the doors
and the street in front, and at last gaining such a height as to invade
the sacred precincts of justice, overbearing the trembling accents
of Bombici as lie narrated his tale of woe. Out rushed the valiant
carabinieri