said the officer, 'I have the
honour to inform you that you are free.' 'But before I go I must say
something,' said the Deputy. 'My only orders are that you are to be set
at liberty,' said the officer. 'Nevertheless, I must see the Minister,'
said Mr. Rossi. But the crowd had pressed in and surrounded him, and in
a moment the flood had carried him out into the street, with shouts and
the waving of hats and a whirlwind of enthusiasm. And now he is being
drawn by force through the city in a mad, glad, wild procession."

"But he deserves it all, and more--far, far more!"

The stranger looked at the woman's beaming eyes, and said, "You are not
his wife--no?"

"Oh, no! I'm only the wife of one of his friends," she answered.

"But you live here?"

"We live in the rooms on the roof."

"Perhaps you keep house for the Deputy?"

"Yes--that is to say--yes, we keep house for Mr. Rossi."

At that moment the room, which had been gloomy, was suddenly lighted by
a shaft of sunshine, and there came from some unseen place a musical
noise like the rippling of waters in a fountain.

"It's the birds," said the woman, and she threw open a window that was
also a door and led to a flat roof on which some twenty or thirty
canaries were piping and shrilling their little swollen throats in a
gigantic bird-cage.

"Mr. Rossi's?"

"Yes, and he is fond of animals also--dogs and cats and rabbits and
squirrels, especially squirrels."

"Squirrels?"

"He has a grey one in a cage on the roof now. But he is not like some
people who love animals--he loves children, too. He loves all children,
and as for Joseph...."

"The little boy who cried 'Uncle David' at the door?"

"Yes, sir. One day my husband said 'Uncle David' to Mr. Rossi, and he
has been Uncle David to my little Joseph ever since."

"This is the dining-room, no doubt," said the stranger.

"Unfortunately, yes, sir."

"Why unfortunately?"

"Because here is the hall, and here is the table, and there's not even a
curtain between, and the moment the door is opened he is exposed to
everybody. People know it, too, and they take advantage. He would give
the chicken off his plate if he hadn't anything else. I have to scold
him a little sometimes--I can't help it. And as for father, he says he
has doubled his days in purgatory by the lies he tells, turning people
away."

"That will be his bedroom, I suppose," said the stranger, indicating a
door which the boy had passed through.