avy stick?" she said.

It wasn't a stick, and he wasn't a bit tired of carrying it.

"But aren't you tired _yourself_?" she said, and he admitted that
perhaps it was so.

So she picked him up, and carried him in her arms, while he carried the
mace, and for some minutes both were satisfied. But presently some one
in the Via Tritone cried out, "Helloa! here comes the Blessed Bambino,"
whereupon his worshipful dignity was again wounded, and he wriggled to
the ground.

It began to thunder and there were some flashes of lightning, whereupon
Joseph shuddered and crept closer to the girl's side.

"Are you afraid of lightning, Joseph?" she asked.

He wasn't. He often saw it at home when he went to bed. His mother held
his hand and he covered up his head in the clothes, and then he liked
it.

The girl took the wee, fat hand again, and the little feet toddled on.

After vain efforts to snatch a kiss, which were defeated by a proper
withdrawal of the manly head in the cocked hat, the girl with the
feathers and the doll's face left him in the Via due Macelli under a
bright electric lamp that hung over the door of a cafe-chantant.

Joseph knew then that he was not far from Donna Roma's, and he began to
think of what he would do when he got there. If the big porter at the
door tried to stop him he would say, "I'm a little Roman boy," and the
man would _have_ to let him go up. Then he would take charge of the
hall, and when he had not to open the door he would play with the dog,
and sometimes with Donna Roma.

With sound practical sense he thought of his wages. Would it be a penny
a week or twopence? He thought it would be twopence. Men didn't work for
nothing nowadays. He had heard his father say so.

Then he remembered his mother, and his lip began to drop. But it rose
again when he told himself that of course she would come every night to
put him to bed as usual. "Good-night, mamma! See you in the morning," he
would say, and when he opened his eyes it would be to-morrow.

He was feeling sleepy now, and do what he would he could hardly keep his
eyes from closing. But he was in the Piazza di Spagna by this time, and
his little feet in their top-boots began to patter up the snowy steps.

There are three principal landings to the Spanish Steps, and the great
little man of seven had reached the second of them when a noise in the
streets below made him stop and turn his head.

A great crowd, carrying hundreds of torches,