he Three Musketeers_, but he
had read them all, years ago. _The Arabian Nights_ was new to him, but
it was marked ten francs. In voluble Sicilian he expressed my views by
telling the bookseller it was ridiculously too expensive and that he
could give no more than two francs fifty centimes--he never gave more for
a book. The man held out for five francs. The boy laughed at him. They
declaimed and gesticulated and swore at each other until, at last, Micio,
a baffled paladin, wiped his brow wearily as though there was no doing
anything with these people, and told me to take three francs out of my
purse and give them to the brigand, who politely wrapped up our purchases
and we strolled off.

"Now," said Micio as we approached the chocolate shop, "we did rather
well over the _Arabian Nights_--saved seven francs--do you think it would
be extravagant if we were to have an ice to restore us after our
struggles?"

Of course I agreed, though I had not myself done any struggling, and, as
we sat at our little table eating our ices, we talked about the theatre.
I said I had never seen such acting; leaving Giovanni out of
consideration, all the company knew how to produce the illusion of
reality even down to Lola. Micio had no opinion of Lola. She was not to
be considered seriously as an actress; she might become one some day, but
she was only a child. All the children of artists can do as well as she,
but no one can really act who has not suffered. He himself used to act
quite as well as Lola, but had not appeared on the stage for a long
while--not since he had been at school. He could do better now.

"When I see the others acting," he said, "I am not moved, it is like
reading an index. But when I see Giovanni, it is all different, it is
like reading a romance and it makes me cry."

He found fault with some of the plays for not being worthy of the actor.
Too many of them were little more than disconnected incidents, strung
together to provide opportunities for effects, but with no more plot than
the doings of the paladins in the marionette theatres. They were like
the Pietro Longo play, which I had told him about, and he said that, if
that was really all of it, it began with one story and ended with another
and cried aloud for a third act to hold it together.

"Pietro must escape from prison," said Micio; "he must return home and we
must know whether his sister died or went into a convent or married the
policeman."