e-saddle
fashion, one leg crossed over the other, the lower leg nearly touching
the ground; one hand held a pipe to his mouth, while the other held an
olive branch, by no means an emblem of peace to the jackass, who
twitched one long ear and then the other, in expectation of a momentary
visit from it on either side of his head. Following, at a dutiful
distance behind, came a splendid specimen of a Roman peasant-woman, a
true _contadina_: poised on her head was a very large round basket, from
over the edge of which sundry chickens' heads and cocks' feathers arose,
and while Caper was looking at the basket, he saw two tiny little arms
stuck up suddenly above the chickens, and then heard a faint squall--it
was her baby. An instantaneous desire seized Caper to make a rough
sketch of the family group, and hailing the man, he asked him for a
light to his cigar. The jackass was stopped by pulling his left ear--the
ears answering for reins--and after giving a light, the man was going
on, when Caper, taking a _scudo_ from his pocket, told him that if he
would let him make a sketch of himself, wife, and jackass, he would give
it to him, telling him also that he would not detain them over an hour.

'If you'll give me a _buona mano_ besides the _scudo_, I'll do it,' he
answered.

The _buona mano_ is the ignis fatuus that leads on three fourths of the
Italians; it is the bright spark that wakes them up to exertion. No
matter what the fixed price for doing any thing may be, there must
always be a something undefined ahead of it, to crown the work when
accomplished. It makes labor a lottery; it makes even sawing wood a
species of gambling. Caper promised a _buona mano_.

The man told his wife that the Signore was to make a _ritratto_, a
picture of them all, including the jackass, at which she laughed
heartily, showing a splendid set of brilliantly white teeth. A finer
type of woman it would be hard to find, for she was tall, straight, with
magnificent bust and broad hips. Her hair, thick and black, was drawn
back from her forehead like a Chinese, and was confined behind her head
with two long silver pins, the heads representing flowers; heavy,
crescent-shaped, gold earrings hung from her ears; around her full
throat circled two strings of red coral beads. Her boddice of crimson
cloth was met by the well-filled out-folds of her white linen shirt,
the sleeves of which fell from her shoulders below her elbows, in full,
graceful folds;