in daily
instances, and, amongst others, in the story which I will now tell you.

There was one time in my dear city of Naples an old man who was as poor
as poor could be. He was so wretched, so bare, so light, and with not a
farthing in his pocket, that he went naked as a flea. And being about
to shake out the bags of life, he called to him his sons, Oratiello and
Pippo, and said to them, "I am now called upon by the tenor of my bill
to pay the debt I owe to Nature. Believe me, I should feel great
pleasure in quitting this abode of misery, this den of woes, but that I
leave you here behind me--a pair of miserable fellows, as big as a
church, without a stitch upon your backs, as clean as a barber's basin,
as nimble as a serjeant, as dry as a plum-stone, without so much as a
fly can carry upon its foot; so that, were you to run a hundred miles,
not a farthing would drop from you. My ill-fortune has indeed brought
me to such beggary that I lead the life of a dog, for I have all along,
as well you know, gaped with hunger and gone to bed without a candle.
Nevertheless, now that I am a-dying, I wish to leave you some token of
my love. So do you, Oratiello, who are my first-born, take the sieve
that hangs yonder against the wall, with which you can earn your bread;
and do you, little fellow, take the cat and remember your daddy!" So
saying, he began to whimper; and presently after said, "God be with
you--for it is night!"

Oratiello had his father buried by charity; and then took the sieve and
went riddling here, there, and everywhere to gain a livelihood; and the
more he riddled, the more he earned. But Pippo, taking the cat, said,
"Only see now what a pretty legacy my father has left me! I, who am not
able to support myself, must now provide for two. Whoever beheld so
miserable an inheritance?" Then the cat, who overheard this
lamentation, said to him, "You are grieving without need, and have more
luck than sense. You little know the good fortune in store for you; and
that I am able to make you rich if I set about it." When Pippo had
heard this, he thanked Her Pussyship, stroked her three or four times
on the back, and commended himself warmly to her. So the cat took
compassion on poor Pippo; and, every morning, when the Sun, with the
bait of light on his golden hook, fishes for the shakes of Night, she
betook herself to the shore, and catching a goodly grey mullet or a
fine dory, she carried it to the King and said, "My L