their
wonder at the distant moving light, their impatience and their
turbulence. All this he did, still sitting on his seat and
gesticulating. When he came to the mutiny he rose. He was peculiarly
well able to tell us about the mutiny because, in addition to the usual
sources of information, he had recently taken part in a performance of
the story got up for a charity in Palermo and he had been the one chosen
by lot to kill Colombo. He conspired apart with imaginary sailors,
occasionally glancing and pointing furtively towards the other end of the
piazza. When the murder had been sufficiently agreed upon, he snatched a
knife off the supper-table and, hiding himself behind our chairs, crept
cautiously towards that part of the deck where Colombo stood busily
discovering America through a telescope, the invention of another Italian
named Galileo (who was born some seventy years later). He took the knife
from between his teeth where he had been carrying it, and was about to
commit the dastardly act when Colombo turned round, seized him by the
collar, flung him away and had him put into chains. He was brought up
again when land was in sight and told to look ahead.

"But what do I see?" said the sailor, shading his eyes. "What strange
vegetation is yonder and what unknown beasts? When I look upon these
potatoes, this tobacco for the nose, all these elephants and cucumbers
and trees full of monkeys, it appears to me that I am taking part in the
discovery of America. O noble captain! Pieta, pieta!"

With this he knelt at the feet of Colombo who pardoned him, and the
sailors embraced and wept for joy.

And all the time Giovanni sat gazing and listening with all his eyes, his
ears, his expressive hands and his eloquent back as though it was the
first he had ever heard of it, which can hardly have been the case. More
probably he was considering and criticizing the speaker's delivery and
mentally casting him for a part in a new play, for he lives in his art;
his meals, his sleep, his recreations are all arranged with a view to the
theatre whose only rival in his affections is his mother.

Then we went on with the game, if this did not form part of it, and I was
given some wine and invited to drink. It was an occasion not to be
passed over in silence, so, although I am not good at speech-making, I
rose with my glass in my right hand and, laying my left on Giovanni's
shoulder said--

"Quattro sono le cinque parti de