h a corpse. But I
reflected that it would be foolish to seem afraid of it, when I was
really not at all timid, and so I went to bed and slept until dawn.
But when I went downstairs I found the innkeeper, and gave him a piece
of my mind.

"What sort of an inn do you keep? What manners are these?" I cried
angrily. "What diavolo put into your pumpkin head to give me a
sepulchre for a room?"

He seemed much disturbed at what I said, and broke out into a thousand
apologies. But I was not to be so easily pacified.

"Do you think," I demanded, "that I will ever come here again, or
advise any of my friends to come here? It is insufferable. I will
write to the police--" But at this he began to shed tears and to wring
his hands, saying it was not his fault.

"You see, signore, it was my wife who made me arrange it so. Oh! these
women--the devil has made them all! It was her father--the old dead
man you saw. He died yesterday morning--may he rest!--and we will
bury him to-day. You see everyone knows that unless a dead man is
watched by someone from another town his soul will not rest in peace.
My wife's father was a jettatore; he had the evil eye, and people knew
it for miles around, so I could not persuade anyone from the other
villages to sit by him and watch his body, though I sent everywhere
all day yesterday. At last that wife of mine--maledictions on her
folly!--said, 'It is my father, after all, and his soul must rest, at
any price. If you put a traveller in the next room, and leave the door
open, it will be the same thing; and so he will be in peace.' That is
the way it happened, signore," he continued, after wiping away his
tears; "you see I could not help it at all. But if you will overlook
it, I will not make any charges for your stay. My wife shall pay me.
She has poultry by the hundred. I will pay myself with her chickens."

"Very good," said I, well pleased at having got so cheap a lodging.
"But I am a just man, and I will pay for what I have eaten and drunk,
and you can take the night's lodging out of your wife's chickens, as
you say." So we were both satisfied.[Footnote: This incident actually
occurred, precisely as related.]

The storm of the night had passed away, leaving everything wet and the
air cool and fresh. I wrapped my cloak about me and went into the
market-place to see if I could pick up any news. It was already late
for the country, and there were few people about. Here and there, in
the street