e.
"Suppose I were to write to my government--how would that do?"

Croppo was evidently puzzled; my cheerful and unembarrassed manner
apparently perplexed him. He had a suspicion that I was even capable of
the audacity of making a fool of him, and yet that proposition about the
government rather staggered him; there might be something in it.

"Don't you think," he remarked, grimly, "it would add to the effect of
your communication if you were to enclose your own ears in your letter?
I can easily supply them; and if you are not a little more guarded in
your speech you may possibly have to add your tongue."

"It would not have the slightest effect," I replied, paying no heed
to his threat; "you don't know Palmerston as I do. If you wish to get
anything out of him you must be excessively civil. What does he care
about my ears?" And I laughed with such scornful contempt that Croppo
this time felt that he had made a fool of himself, and I observed
the lovely girl behind, while the corners of her mouth twitched with
suppressed laughter, make a sign of caution.

"_Per Dio!_" he exclaimed, jumping up with fury. "Understand, Signor
Inglese, that Croppo is not to be trifled with. I have a summary way of
treating disrespect," and he drew a long and exceedingly sharp-looking
two-edged knife.

"So you would kill the goose" ("and I certainly am a goose," I
reflected) "that may lay a golden egg." But my allusion was lost upon
him, and I saw my charmer touch her forehead significantly, as though to
imply to Croppo that I was weak in the upper story.

"An imbecile without friends and twelve bajocchi in his pocket," he
muttered, savagely. "Perhaps the night without food will restore his
senses. Come, fool!" and he roughly pushed me into a dark little chamber
adjoining. "Here, Valeria, hold the light."

So Valeria was the name of the heroine of the donkey episode. As she
held a small oil-lamp aloft I perceived that the room in which I was to
spend the night had more the appearance of a cellar than a chamber; it
had been excavated on two sides from the bank; on the third there was
a small hole about six inches square, apparently communicating with
another room, and on the fourth was the door by which I had entered,
and which opened into the kitchen and general living-room of the
inhabitants. There was a heap of onions running to seed, the fagots of
fire-wood which Valeria had brought that afternoon, and an old cask or
two.

"Won'