a gamboge pot tied round with a vermilion
ribbon as a sign of goodwill and friendship. He drew the design out of
his own imagination and coloured it with paints which we had bought
together in Naples. I might have sent him a volume of Keats containing a
_Pot of Basil_ in an equally transmissible form, but as he does not read
English he would not have understood; so I sent him a young cucumber
about three inches long. The ceremony was complete, and we are as good a
pair of compari as any in the island.

Thus there are five kinds of compari, namely:--

1. The Compare di Battesimo.

2. The Compare di Cresima.

3. The Compare di Anello.

4. The Compare di Parentela.

5. The Compare di San Giovanni.

It may be said that there are more kinds; the woman who washes the cap in
which a baby is baptised becomes comare, but I do not know whether this
is so anywhere but in Catania. And the word is sometimes used in a
figurative sense as a term of endearment in addressing a partner or any
intimate friend, and sometimes with the intention of inspiring confidence
in addressing a stranger in a lower station of life. When two plump
gentlemen and one thin one entered the yard of the "White Hart" where Mr.
Samuel Weller happened to be burnishing a pair of painted tops, the thin
gentleman advanced.

"My friend," said the thin gentleman.

"You're one o' the adwice gratis order," thought Sam, "or you wouldn't be
so wery fond of me all at once." But he only said, "Well, Sir."

A Sicilian Mr. Perker might have said, "Compare" instead of "Amico," and
one is expected to believe that no unworthy suspicion would have crossed
the mind of a Sicilian Sam Weller.

Between compari there is such complete trust and devotion that no request
is ever refused; there is also the conviction, based first on intuition
and afterwards on experience, that no request which ought to be refused
will ever be made--a conviction which is, I suppose, an element in all
friendship. A compare is received in the house as a member of the family
and is looked upon as a relation closer than a brother. One can choose
as compare a friend in whom one has confidence, whereas there is no
choosing a brother, and cases have been known in which brothers did not
agree. But any compare taking advantage of his position would be a
contemptible traitor and among the sulphur-miners would provide material
for a play at the Teatro Machiavelli. Talking it over with Pe