r all, than the sticklebacks and
minnows. It will lengthen your life."

"The Padrone jests," said Jackeymo, statelily, "as if any one could
starve in his service."

"Um," said Riccabocca. "At least, faithful friend, you have tried that
experiment as far as human nature will permit;" and he extended his hand
to his fellow-exile with that familiarity which exists between servant
and master in the usages of the continent. Jackeymo bent low, and a tear
fell upon the hand he kissed.

"_Cospetto!_" said Dr. Riccabocca, "a thousand mock pearls do not make
up the cost of a single true one! The tears of women, we know their
worth; but the tear of an honest man--fie, Giacomo!--at least I can
never repay you this! Go and see to our wardrobe."

So far as his master's wardrobe was concerned, that order was pleasing
to Jackeymo; for the Doctor had in his drawers suits which Jackeymo
pronounced to be as good as new, though many a long year had passed
since they left the tailor's hands. But when Jackeymo came to examine
the state of his own clothing department, his face grew considerably
longer. It was not that he was without other clothes than those on his
back--quantity was there, but the quality! Mournfully he gazed on two
suits, complete in the three separate members of which man's raiments
are composed: the one suit extended at length upon his bed, like a
veteran stretched by pious hands after death; the other brought
piecemeal to the invidious light--the _torso_ placed upon a chair, the
limbs dangling down from Jackeymo's melancholy arm. No bodies long
exposed at the Morgue could evince less sign of resuscitation than those
respectable defuncts. For, indeed, Jackeymo had been less thrifty of his
apparel--more _profusus sui_--than his master. In the earliest days of
their exile, he preserved the decorous habit of dressing for dinner--it
was a respect due to the Padrone--and that habit had lasted till the two
habits on which it necessarily depended had evinced the first symptoms
of decay; then the evening clothes had been taken into morning wear, in
which hard service they had breathed their last.

The Doctor, notwithstanding his general philosophical abstraction from
such household details, had more than once said, rather in pity to
Jackeymo, than with an eye to that respectability which the costume of
the servant reflects on the dignity of the master, "Giacomo, thou
wantest clothes; fit thyself out of mine!"

And Jackeymo