y case, I 'll be guided by your judgment. I'll wear my dina
giacca, but I'll wear it with an air! I 'll confer upon it the dignity
of a court-suit. Is that a gardener--that person working over there?"

Marietta looked in the quarter indicated by Peter's nod.

"Yes, Signorino; ha is the same gardener who works here three days every
week," she answered.

"Is he, really? He looks like a pirate," Peter murmured.

"Like a pirate? Luigi?" she exclaimed.

"Yes," affirmed her master. "He wears green corduroy trousers, and a
red belt, and a blue shirt. That is the pirate uniform. He has a swarthy
skin, and a piercing eye, and hair as black as the Jolly Roger. Those
are the marks by which you recognise a pirate, even when in mufti. I
believe you said his name is Luigi?"

"Yes, Signorino--Luigi Maroni. We call him Gigi."

"Is Gigi versatile?" asked Peter.

"Versatile--?" puzzled Marietta. But then, risking her own
interpretation of the recondite word, "Oh, no, Signorino. He is of the
country."

"Ah, he's of the country, is he? So much the better. Then he will know
the way to Castel Ventirose?"

"But naturally, Signorino." Marietta nodded.

"And do you think, for once in a way, though not versatile, he could be
prevailed upon to divert his faculties from the work of a gardener to
that of a messenger?"

"A messenger, Signorino?" Marietta wrinkled up her brow.

"Ang--an unofficial postman. Do you think he could be induced to carry a
letter for me to the castle?"

"But certainly, Signorino. He is here to obey the Signorino's orders."
Marietta shrugged her shoulders, and waved her hands.

"Then tell him, please, to go and put the necessary touches to his
toilet," said Peter. "Meanwhile I'll indite the letter."

When his letter was indited, he found the piratical-looking Gigi in
attendance, and he gave it to him, with instructions.

Thereupon Gigi (with a smile of sympathetic intelligence, inimitably
Italian) put the letter in his hat, put his hat upon his head, and
started briskly off--but not in the proper direction: not in the
direction of the road, which led to the village, and across the bridge,
and then round upon itself to the gates of the park. He started briskly
off towards Peter's own toolhouse, a low red-tiled pavilion, opposite
the door of Marietta's kitchen.

Peter was on the point of calling to him, of remonstrating. Then he
thought better of it. He would wait a bit, and watch.

He waited and watche