or smile.

"Eh, the reasons are two. First, you bowed to him, as though he were
some personage, and you of course know who he is. Secondly, he lifted
his hat to you. He is therefore a real signore, as good perhaps as a
Roman prince. We say a proverb in the country--'to salute is courtesy,
to answer is duty.' Therefore when any one salutes a real signore, he
answers and lifts his hat. These are the reasons why I say this one must
be a great one."

"For that matter, you are right," laughed the porter. "That signore is
an English lord. What a combination! You have guessed it. His name is
Lord Redin."

Stefanone's sharp eyes fixed themselves vacantly, for he did not wish to
betray his surprise at not hearing the name he had expected.

"Eh!" he exclaimed. "Names? What are they, when one is a prince. Prince
of this. Duke of that. Our Romans are full of names. I daresay this
signore has four or five."

But the porter knew of no other, and presently Stefanone departed,
wondering whether he had made a mistake, after all, and recalling the
features of the man he had followed to compare them with those younger
ones he remembered so distinctly. He went back to the Via della Frezza
and drank a glass of wine. Then he filled the glass again and carried it
carefully across the street to his friend the cobbler.

"Drink," he said. "It will do you good. A drop of wine at sunset gives
force to the stomach."

The one-eyed man looked up, and smiled at his friend, a phenomenon
rarely observed on his wrinkled and bearded face. He shrugged one round
shoulder, by way of assent, held his head a little on one side and
stretched out his black hand with the glass in it, to the light. He
tasted it, smelt it, and looked up at Stefanone before he drank in
earnest.

"Black soul!" he exclaimed by way of an approving asseveration. "This is
indeed wine!"

"He took it for vinegar!" observed Stefanone, speaking to the air.

"It is wine," answered the cobbler when he had drained the glass. "It is
a consolation."

Then they began to talk together, and Stefanone questioned him about his
interview with the tall gentleman an hour earlier. The cobbler really
knew nothing about him, though he remembered having seen him several
times, years ago, before Gloria had come.

"You know nothing," said Stefanone. "That signore is the father of Sor
Paolo's signora, who died in my house."

"You are joking," returned the cobbler, gravely. "He would have come t