colded angrily: "You take the
sugar again if you dare, you!" and hit Francis Joseph a formidable knock
on the side of the head. This worthy had expected quite different
treatment, and ran off to hide among the beans. Then Bianconi had it out
with his wife, scolding her roundly, and swearing that in the future he
would look after the sugar himself; and upon her daring retort: "What
business is it of yours, after all?" he flung out: "Everything is my
business, everything is my business!" and turning his back upon her,
strode off, puffing and tingling, to the spot where his attentive wife
had prepared the fishing-rod and the _polenta_, and began to bait the
two great hooks he used in catching tench. In the olden days that little
world was even more completely isolated from the great world than at
present, and was, even more than at present, a world of silence and of
peace, in which the functionaries of both State and Church, and,
following their venerable example, many faithful subjects as well,
dedicated several hours a day to edifying contemplation. Seated first on
the West, the Receiver cast two hooks attached to a single line, two
tempting mouthfuls of _polenta_, as far out from the shore as possible;
when the line was stretched tight, when the float seemed firmly anchored
in quiet expectation, the Imperial and Royal personage placed the short
rod delicately upon the low wall, and sat down to contemplate. To the
east of him the _sedentario_, as the customs-guard was then called,
crouching on the humble landing-stage in front of another float, smoked
his pipe and contemplated. A few steps beyond old, half-starved Custant,
a retired white-washer, sacristan and churchwarden, one of the
patricians of the village of Oria, sat in contemplation, on the prow of
his boat, a lofty, prehistoric, tall hat on his head, the magic wand in
his hand, his legs dangling above the water, and his soul concentrated
on his own particular float. Seated on the edge of a small field, in the
shade of a mulberry-tree and a large, black, straw hat, the puny, thin,
be-spectacled Don Brazzova, parish-priest of Albogasio, was lost in
contemplation, his image reflected in the clear water. In a
kitchen-garden of Albogasio Inferiore, between the banks of the Ceron
and that of Mandroeugn, another patrician in a jacket and high boots,
the churchwarden Bignetta, called _el Signoron_, the _fine gentleman_,
sitting stiff and solemn, upon an eighteenth century