, and that for so long a time he had almost violently ignored.

He resolved to take a carriage, drive slowly to Posilipo, and eat his
dinner there in some eyrie above the sea; watching the pageant that
unfolds itself on the evenings of summer about the ristoranti and the
osterie, round the stalls of the vendors of Fruitti di Mare, and the
piano-organs, to the accompaniment of which impudent men sing love songs
to the saucy, dark-eyed beauties posed upon balconies, or gathered in
knots upon the little terraces that dominate the bathing establishments,
and the distant traffic of the Bay. His brain longed for rest, but it
longed also for the hum and the stir of men. His heart lusted for the
sight of pleasure, and must be appeased.

Catching up his hat, almost with the hasty eagerness of a boy, he
went down-stairs. On the opposite side of the road was a smart little
carriage in which the coachman was asleep, with his legs cocked up
on the driver's seat, displaying a pair of startling orange-and-black
socks. By the socks Artois knew his man.

"Pasqualino! Pasqualino!" he cried.

The coachman sprang up, showing a round, rosy face, and a pair of
shrewd, rather small dark eyes.

"Take me to Posilipo."

"Si, Signore."

Pasqualino cracked his whip vigorously.

"Ah--ah! Ah--ah!" he cried to his gayly bedizened little horse, who wore
a long feather on his head, flanked by bunches of artificial roses.

"Not too fast, Pasqualino. I am in no hurry. Keep along by the sea."

The coachman let the reins go loose, and instantly the little horse went
slowly, as if all his spirit and agility had suddenly been withdrawn
from him.

"I have not seen you for several days, Signore. Have you been ill?"

Pasqualino had turned quite round on his box, and was facing his client.

"No, I've been working."

"Si?"

Pasqualino made a grimace, as he nearly always did when he heard a rich
Signore speak of working.

"And you? You have been spending money as usual. All your clothes are
new."

Pasqualino smiled, showing rows of splendid teeth under his little
twisted-up mustache.

"Si, Signore, all! And I have also new underclothing."

"Per Bacco!"

"Ecco, Signore!"

He pulled his trousers up to his knees, showing a pair of pale-blue
drawers.

"The suspenders--they are new, Signore!" He drew attention to the
scarlet elastics that kept the orange-and-black socks in place.
"My boots!" He put his feet up on the box that Artois might