, with all the yet dirtier
herd that live by hook and crook in the streets or under the wharves; a
room with a bed and stove, a room without, a half-room with or without
ditto, a quarter-room with or without a blanket or quilt, and with only
a chalk-mark on the floor instead of a partition. Into one of these went
Mr. Raphael Ristofalo, the two boys, and the apples. Whose assistance or
indulgence, if any, he secured in there is not recorded; but when, late
in the afternoon, the Italian issued thence--the boys, meanwhile,
had been coming and going--an unusual luxury had been offered the
roustabouts and idlers of the steam-boat landings, and many had
bought and eaten freely of the very small, round, shiny, sugary, and
artificially crimson roasted apples, with neatly whittled white-pine
stems to poise them on as they were lifted to the consumer's watering
teeth. When, the next morning Richling laughed at the story, the Italian
drew out two dollars and a half, and began to take from it a dollar.

"But you have last night's lodging and so forth yet to pay for."

"No. Made friends with Sicilian luggerman. Slept in his lugger." He
showed his brow and cheeks speckled with mosquito-bites. "Ate little
hard-tack and coffee with him this morning. Don't want much." He offered
the dollar with a quarter added. Richling declined the bonus.

"But why not?"

"Oh, I just couldn't do it," laughed Richling; "that's all."

"Well," said the Italian, "lend me that dollar one day more, I return
you dollar and half in its place to-morrow."

The lender had to laugh again. "You can't find an odd barrel of damaged
apples every day."

"No. No apples to-day. But there's regiment soldiers at lower landing;
whole steam-boat load; going to sail this evenin' to Florida. They'll
eat whole barrel hard-boil' eggs."--And they did. When they sailed, the
Italian's pocket was stuffed with small silver.

Richling received his dollar and fifty cents. As he did so, "I would
give, if I had it, a hundred dollars for half your art," he said,
laughing unevenly. He was beaten, surpassed, humbled. Still he said,
"Come, don't you want this again? You needn't pay me for the use of it."

But the Italian refused. He had outgrown his patron. A week afterward
Richling saw him at the Picayune Tier, superintending the unloading of a
small schooner-load of bananas. He had bought the cargo, and was
reselling to small fruiterers.

"Make fifty dolla' to-day," said the Ita