-a foreigner of some kind; no Sicilian would make such an objection.
It was the same actress, but a different character in the drama. That
was either because they have not enough ladies in the company, or because
the lady who ought to have taken one part or the other is away on a
holiday, or because the lady who acted wanted to show she could do a good
old woman and a bad old woman equally well."

"Thank you very much. You can hardly expect--But hush! they are
beginning the third act, which will explain everything."

The curtain rose again. The background represented an elegant circular
temple built of sponge cake, strawberry ice and spangles; it stood at the
end of a perspective of columns constructed of the same materials, and
between the columns were green bushes in ornamental flower-pots--all very
pretty and gay--"molto bellissimo," as the buffo said. The orchestra
struck up a jigging tune in six-eight time in a minor key with a refrain
in the tonic major, and a washed-out youth in evening dress with a
receding forehead, a long, bony nose, an eye-glass, prominent
upper-teeth, no chin, a hat on the back of his head, a brown greatcoat
over his arm, shiny boots, a cigarette and a silver-topped cane, entered.
I whispered:

"Is he dressed well enough for an Englishman?

"Yes," whispered the buffo, "but this is no Englishman. Don't you see
who it is and where we are? This is the good young man in paradise. His
punishment has been too much for him and he has died in prison."

"But, Buffo mio," I objected, "it's a different person altogether; it's
not a bit like him."

"It may be a different actor--I think it is--but it is the same character
in the drama. That is either because they have too many men in the
company, or because the actor who did the good young man in the first act
has gone home to supper and another is finishing his part for him, or
because--I can't think of any other reason just now, and I want to hear
what he is saying."

Except for his clothes, the creature on the stage was little more than a
limp and a dribble, but there was enough of him to sing a song telling us
in the Neapolitan dialect that his notion of happiness was to stroll up
and down the Toledo ogling the girls. When he had finished acknowledging
the applause he departed and his place was taken by a lady no longer
young, in flimsy pale blue muslin, a low neck and sham diamonds. There
lingered about her a hungry wistfulness, as