The Argosy — page 205: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

190 The Sapphire Cross. had chased the last worshippers from the adoration of the relics in the side chapels. Liuittle groups of gossips had lingered for a space on the wide piazzas, then had been absorbed into the silence of the winding streets. And as the sun was setting, and the crisp air brought a hint of snow newly fallen on the furthest hills, the cafés began to — receive their usual complement of haunters—for the most part men who spent the evening in playing dominoes and sipping vapid punch. Signor Renzo had spent some hours already in one of these cafés. Through an acquaintance of his in the town he had not found much difficulty in discovering the abode of Tito. His next task was to make the acquaintance of the carpenter himself. About this he con- sidered it advisable to act with some degree of caution. ‘Tito lived at the top of a narrow way that crept painfully past a side of San Giovanni Evangelista. Near that beautiful old church was a shabby second-rate little café, and Signor Renzo divined that this was the most likely place for Tito to spend his afternoons and evenings. Thither, therefore, the lawyer repaired and patiently waited, even coing the length of dining off some indescribable food that would have ruined the temper of an Englishman for a month. At last, the café being small and the young man’s ears remarkably sharp, he caught a phrase of the conversation at a table near his own, and turned his head to listen. Yes! certainly they were talking of some Tito. Signor Renzo rose, and approaching the speakers, asked politely for a newspaper, which he knew was not there. ‘The whole party jumped up and hunted about; they called the waiter and questioned him; they addressed sympathizing observations to Signor Renzo on the bad arrangements which deprived him of his desire: in short, they were as officlous and as amiable as Italians are generally. By the time they subsided into their seats once more they may be said to have become quite intimate with the lawyer, and on his remarking that he had felt a great draught where he was sitting, it seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to drop into a vacant chair at their table. They were not people in his own station in life, and an English centleman would hardly have cared to be seen sitting with them. 3ut social spirit in Italy is very democratic, and Signor Renzo did not feel himself to be degraded by the fact of conversing pleasantly with the snuffy and shabby old priest who was cousin to the barber beside him. ‘So, as I was saying,” resumed the barber’s wife to the stout fattore, ‘‘ the poor angel is positively at the last gasp. ‘ Babbo,’ she says, In a thread of a voice, ‘ Babbo, come, sit close tome. I heard them say just now that I should soon be taken away. What did they mean P?’” ‘ Poverina!” cried everybody, in sympathetic chorus. ‘The priest ) Eomichbooks. Go