make sure he is quite dead,"

The beccamorti looked at me in surprise; one laughed grimly and swore.
"By the body of God, if I thought he were not I would twist his
accursed neck for him! But the cholera never fails, he is dead for
certain--see!" And he knocked the head of the corpse to and fro against
the sides of the coffin with no more compunction than if it had been a
block of wood. Sickened at the sight, I turned away and said no more.
On reaching one of the more important thoroughfares I perceived several
knots of people collected, who glanced at one another with eager yet
shamed faces, and spoke in low voices. A whisper reached my ears, "The
king! the king!" All heads were turned in one direction; I paused and
looked also. Walking at a leisurely pace, accompanied by a few
gentlemen of earnest mien and grave deportment, I saw the fearless
monarch, Humbert of Italy--he whom his subjects delight to honor. He
was making a round of visits to all the vilest holes and corners of the
city, where the plague raged most terribly--he had not so much as a
cigarette in his mouth to ward off infection. He walked with the easy
and assured step of a hero; his face was somewhat sad, as though the
sufferings of his people had pressed heavily upon his sympathetic
heart. I bared my head reverently as he passed, his keen kind eyes
lighted on me with a smile.

"A subject for a painting, yon white-haired fisherman!" I heard him say
to one of his attendants. Almost I betrayed myself. I was on the point
of springing forward and throwing myself at his feet to tell him my
story. It seemed to me both cruel and unnatural that he, my beloved
sovereign, should pass me without recognition--me, to whom he had
spoken so often and so cordially. For when I visited Rome, as I was
accustomed to do annually, there were few more welcome guests at the
balls of the Quirinal Palace than Count Fabio Romani. I began to wonder
stupidly who Fabio Romani was; the gay gallant known as such seemed no
longer to have any existence--a "white-haired fisherman" usurped his
place. But though I thought these things I refrained from addressing
the king. Some impulse, however, led me to follow him at a respectful
distance, as did also many others. His majesty strolled through the
most pestilential streets with as much unconcern as though he wore
taking his pleasure in a garden of roses; he stepped quietly into the
dirtiest hovels where lay both dead and dying; he spoke