ounds' worth in English silver. Jackeymo put back the
foreign coins, saying prudently, "One will lose on them here;" he seized
the English coins and counted them out. "But are you enough, you
rascals?" quoth he angrily, giving them a good shake. His eye caught
sight of the medallion--he paused; and after eying the tiny
representation of the saint with great deliberation, he added, in a
sentence which he must have picked up from the proverbial aphorisms of
his master--"What's the difference between the enemy who does not hurt
me, and the friend who does not serve me? _Monsignore San Giacomo_, my
patron saint, you are of very little use to me in the leathern bag. But
if you help me to get into a new pair of small-clothes on this important
occasion, you will be a friend indeed. _Alla bisogna, Monsignore_." Then
gravely kissing the medallion, he thrust it into one pocket, the coins
into the other, made up a bundle of the two defunct suits, and,
muttering to himself, "Beast, miser that I am to disgrace the Padrone,
with all these savings in his service!" ran down stairs into his pantry,
caught up his hat and stick, and in a few moments more was seen trudging
off to the neighboring town of L----.

Apparently the poor Italian succeeded, for he came back that evening in
time to prepare the thin gruel which made his master's supper, with a
suit of black--a little threadbare, but still highly respectable--two
shirt fronts, and two white cravats. But, out of all this finery,
Jackeymo held the small-clothes in especial veneration; for as they had
cost exactly what the medallion had sold for, so it seemed to him that
San Giacomo had heard his prayer in that quarter to which he had more
exclusively directed the saint's attention. The other habiliments came
to him in the merely human process of sale and barter; the small-clothes
were the personal gratuity of San Giacomo!

CHAPTER VIII.

Life has been subjected to many ingenious comparisons; and if we do not
understand it any better, it is not for want of what is called reasoning
by illustration. Among other resemblances, there are moments when, to a
quiet contemplator, it suggests the image of one of those rotatory
entertainments commonly seen in fairs, and known by the name of
"whirligigs or roundabouts," in which each participator of the pastime,
seated on his hobby, is always apparently in the act of pursuing some
one before him, while he is pursued by some one behind. Man, and