all self-consciousness, and yet so
delicate and diffident the combination is a rare one. We went up a steep
staircase to a room on the second floor. My companion threw the shutters
open, setting all the flies buzzing. The top of a plane-tree was on
a level with the window, and all its little brown balls were dancing,
quite close, in the wind. As he had promised, an urn was hissing on a
table; there was also a small brown teapot, some sugar, slices of lemon,
and glasses. A bed, washstand, cupboard, tin trunk, two chairs, and a
small rug were all the furniture. Above the bed a sword in a leather
sheath was suspended from two nails. The photograph of a girl stood on
the closed stove. My host went to the cupboard and produced a bottle,
a glass, and a second spoon. When the cork was drawn, the scent of rum
escaped into the air. He sniffed at it and dropped a teaspoonful into
both glasses.

"This is a trick I learned from the Russians after Plevna; they had my
little finger, so I deserved something in exchange." He looked round;
his eyes, his whole face, seemed to twinkle. "I assure you it was worth
it--makes all the difference. Try!" He poured off the tea.

"Had you a sympathy with the Turks?"

"The weaker side--" He paused abruptly, then added: "But it was not
that." Over his face innumerable crow's-feet had suddenly appeared, his
eyes twitched; he went on hurriedly, "I had to find something to do just
then--it was necessary." He stared into his glass; and it was some time
before I ventured to ask if he had seen much fighting.

"Yes," he replied gravely, "nearly twenty years altogether; I was one of
Garibaldi's Mille in '60."

"Surely you are not Italian?"

He leaned forward with his hands on his knees. "I was in Genoa at that
time learning banking; Garibaldi was a wonderful man! One could not help
it." He spoke quite simply. "You might say it was like seeing a little
man stand up to a ring of great hulking fellows; I went, just as you
would have gone, if you'd been there. I was not long with them--our war
began; I had to go back home." He said this as if there had been but one
war since the world began. "In '60," he mused, "till '65. Just think of
it! The poor country. Why, in my State, South Carolina--I was through it
all--nobody could be spared there--we were one to three."

"I suppose you have a love of fighting?"

"H'm!" he said, as if considering the idea for the first time.
"Sometimes I fought for a living,