CHAPTER II.
_Chi va piano va sano_, _e anché lontano_. Fair and softly goes far in a day.
PIEDRO had now an opportunity of establishing a good character. When hewent into the market with his grapes and figs, he found that he was notshunned or taunted as usual. All seemed disposed to believe in hisintended reformation, and to give him a fair trial.
These favourable dispositions towards him were the consequence ofFrancisco’s benevolent representations. He told them that he thoughtPiedro had suffered enough to cure him of his tricks, and that it wouldbe cruelty in them, because he might once have been in fault, to banishhim by their reproaches from amongst them, and thus to prevent him fromthe means of gaining his livelihood honestly.
Piedro made a good beginning, and gave what several of the youngercustomers thought excellent bargains. His grapes and figs were quicklysold, and with the money that he got for them he the next day purchasedfrom a fruit dealer a fresh supply; and thus he went on for some time,conducting himself with scrupulous honesty, so that he acquired somecredit among his companions. They no longer watched him with suspiciouseyes. They trusted to his measures and weights, and they counted lesscarefully the change which they received from him.
The satisfaction he felt from this alteration in their manners was atfirst delightful to Piedro; but in proportion to his credit, hisopportunities of defrauding increased; and these became temptations whichhe had not the firmness to resist. His old manner of thinking recurred.
“I make but a few shillings a day, and this is but slow work,” said he tohimself. “What signifies my good character, if I make so little by it?”
Light gains, and frequent, make a heavy purse, {314} was one ofFrancisco’s proverbs. But Piedro was in too great haste to get rich totake time into his account. He set his invention to work, and he did notwant for ingenuity, to devise means of cheating without running the riskof detection. He observed that the younger part of the community wereextremely fond of certain coloured sugar plums, and of burnt almonds.
With the money he had earned by two months’ trading in fruit he laid in alarge stock of what appeared to these little merchants a stock of almondsand sugar-plums, and he painted in capital gold coloured letters upon hisboard, “Sweetest, largest, most admirable sugar-plums of all colours eversold in Naples, to be had here; and in gratitude to his numerouscustomers, Piedro adds to these, ‘Burnt almonds gratis.’”.
This advertisement attracted the attention of all who could read; andmany who could not read heard it repeated with delight. Crowds ofchildren surrounded Piedro’s board of promise, and they all went away thefirst day amply satisfied. Each had a full measure of colouredsugar-plums at the usual price, and along with these a burnt almondgratis. The burnt almond had such an effect upon the public judgment,that it was universally allowed that the sugar-plums were, as theadvertisement set forth, the largest, sweetest, most admirable ever soldin Naples; though all the time they were, in no respect, better than anyother sugar-plums.
It was generally reported that Piedro gave full measure—fuller than anyother board in the city. He measured the sugar-plums in a little cubicaltin box; and this, it was affirmed, he heaped up to the top, and presseddown before he poured out the contents into the open hands of hisapproving customers. This belief, and Piedro’s popularity, continuedlonger even than he had expected; and, as he thought his sugar-plums hadsecured their reputation with the _generous public_, he graduallyneglected to add burnt almonds gratis.
One day a boy of about ten years old passed carelessly by, whistling ashe went along, and swinging a carpenter’s rule in his hand. “Ha! whathave we here?” cried he, stopping to read what was written on Piedro’sboard. “This promises rarely. Old as I am, and tall of my age, whichmakes the matter worse, I am still as fond of sugar-plums as my littlesister, who is five years younger than I. Come, Signor, fill me quick,for I’m in haste to taste them, two measures of the sweetest, largest,most admirable sugar-plums in Naples—one measure for myself and one formy little Rosetta.”
“You’ll pay for yourself and your sister, then,” said Piedro, “for nocredit is given here.”
“No credit do I ask,” replied the lively boy; “when I told you I lovedsugar-plums, did I tell you I loved them, or even my sister, so well asto run in debt for them? Here’s for myself, and here’s for my sister’sshare,” said he, laying down his money; “and now for the burnt almondsgratis, my good fellow.”
“They are all out; I have been out of burnt almonds this great while,”said Piedro.
“Then why are they in your advertisement here?” said Carlo.
“I have not had time to scratch them out of the board.”
“What! not when you have, by your own account, been out of them a greatwhile? I did not know it required so much time to blot out a fewwords—let us try”; and as he spoke, Carlo, for that was the name ofPiedro’s new customer, pulled a bit of white chalk out of his pocket, anddrew a broad score across the line on the board which promised burntalmonds gratis.
“You are most impatient,” said Piedro; “I shall have a fresh stock ofalmonds to-morrow.”
“Why must the board tell a lie to-day?”
“It would ruin me to alter it,” said Piedro.
“A lie may ruin you, but I could scarcely think the truth could.”
“You have no right to meddle with me or my board,” said Piedro, put offhis guard, and out of his usual soft voice of civility, by this lastobservation. “My character, and that of my board, are too firmlyestablished now for any chance customer like you to injure.”
“I never dreamed of injuring you or anyone else,” said Carlo—“I wish,moreover, you may not injure yourself. Do as you please with your board,but give me my sugar-plums, for I have some right to meddle with those,having paid for them.”
“Hold out your hand, then.”
“No, put them in here, if you please; put my sister’s, at least, in here;she likes to have them in this box: I bought some for her in ityesterday, and she’ll think they’ll taste the better out of the same box.But how is this? your measure does not fill my box nearly; you give usvery few sugar-plums for our money.”
“I give you full measure, as I give to everybody.”
“The measure should be an inch cube, I know,” said Carlo; “that’s whatall the little merchants have agreed to, you know.”
“True,” said Piedro, “so it is.”
“And so it is, I must allow,” said Carlo, measuring the outside of itwith the carpenter’s rule which he held in his hand. “An inch every way;and yet by my eye—and I have no bad one, being used to measuringcarpenter’s work for my father—by my eye I should think this would haveheld more sugar-plums.”
“The eye often deceives us;” said Piedro. “There’s nothing likemeasuring, you find.”
“There’s nothing like measuring, I find, indeed,” replied Carlo, as helooked closely at the end of his rule, which, since he spoke last, he hadput into the cube to take its depth in the inside. “This is not as deepby a quarter of an inch, Signor Piedro, measured within as it is measuredwithout.”
Piedro changed colour terribly, and seizing hold of the tin box,endeavoured to wrest it from the youth who measured so accurately. Carloheld his prize fast, and lifting it above his head, he ran into the midstof the square where the little market was held, exclaiming, “A discovery!a discovery! that concerns all who love sugar-plums. A discovery! adiscovery that concerns all who have ever bought the sweetest, and mostadmirable sugar-plums ever sold in Naples.”
The crowd gathered from all parts of the square as he spoke.
“We have bought,” and “We have bought of those sugar-plums,” criedseveral little voices at once, “if you mean Piedro’s.”
“The same,” continued Carlo—“he who, out of gratitude to his numerouscustomers, gives, or promises to give, burnt almonds gratis.”
“Excellent they were!” cried several voices. “We a
ll know Piedro well;but what’s your discovery?”
“My discovery is,” said Carlo, “that you, none of you, know Piedro. Lookyou here; look at this box—this is his measure; it has a false bottom—itholds only three-quarters as much as it ought to do; and his numerouscustomers have all been cheated of one-quarter of every measure of theadmirable sugar-plums they have bought from him. ‘Think twice of a goodbargain,’ says the proverb.”
“So we have been finely duped, indeed,” cried some of the bystanders,looking at one another with a mortified air. “Full of courtesy, full ofcraft!” {317} “So this is the meaning of his burnt almonds gratis,”cried others; all joined in an uproar of indignation, except one, who, ashe stood behind the rest, expressed in his countenance silent surpriseand sorrow.
“Is this Piedro a relation of yours?” said Carlo, going up to this silentperson. “I am sorry, if he be, that I have published his disgrace, for Iwould not hurt _you_. You don’t sell sugar-plums as he does, I’m sure;for my little sister Rosetta has often bought from you. Can this Piedrobe a friend of yours?”
“I wished to have been his friend; but I see I can’t,” said Francisco.“He is a neighbour of ours, and I pitied him; but since he is at his oldtricks again, there’s an end of the matter. I have reason to be obligedto you, for I was nearly taken in. He has behaved so well for some timepast, that I intended this very evening to have gone to him, and to havetold him that I was willing to do for him what he has long begged of meto do—to enter into partnership with him.”
“Francisco! Francisco!—your measure, lend us your measure!” exclaimed anumber of little merchants crowding round him. “You have a measure forsugar-plums; and we have all agreed to refer to that, and to see how muchwe have been cheated before we go to break Piedro’s bench and declare himbankrupt, {318}—the punishment for all knaves.”
They pressed on to Francisco’s board, obtained his measure, found that itheld something more than a quarter above the quantity that could becontained in Piedro’s. The cries of the enraged populace were now mostclamorous. They hung the just and the unjust measures upon high poles;and, forming themselves into a formidable phalanx, they proceeded towardsPiedro’s well known yellow lettered board, exclaiming, as they wentalong, “Common cause! common cause! The little Neapolitan merchants willhave no knaves amongst them! Break his bench! break his bench! He is abankrupt in honesty.”
Piedro saw the mob, heard the indignant clamour, and, terrified at theapproach of numbers, he fled with the utmost precipitation, havingscarcely time to pack up half his sugar-plums. There was a prodigiousnumber, more than would have filled many honest measures, scattered uponthe ground and trampled under foot by the crowd. Piedro’s bench wasbroken, and the public vengeance wreaked itself also upon his treacherouspainted board. It was, after being much disfigured by variousinscriptions expressive of the universal contempt for Piedro, hung up ina conspicuous part of the market-place; and the false measure wasfastened like a cap upon one of its corners. Piedro could never moreshow his face in this market, and all hopes of friendship—all hopes ofpartnership with Francisco—were for ever at an end.
If rogues would calculate, they would cease to be rogues; for they wouldcertainly discover that it is most for their interest to behonest—setting aside the pleasure of being esteemed and beloved, ofhaving a safe conscience, with perfect freedom from all the variousembarrassments and terror to which knaves are subject. Is it not clearthat our crafty hero would have gained rather more by a partnership withFrancisco, and by a fair character, than he could possibly obtain byfraudulent dealing in comfits?
When the mob had dispersed, after satisfying themselves with executingsummary justice upon Piedro’s bench and board, Francisco found acarpenter’s rule lying upon the ground near Piedro’s broken bench, whichhe recollected to have seen in the hands of Carlo. He examined itcarefully, and he found Carlo’s name written upon it, and the name of thestreet where he lived; and though it was considerably out of his way, heset out immediately to restore the rule, which was a very handsome one,to its rightful owner. After a hot walk through several streets, heovertook Carlo, who had just reached the door of his own house. Carlowas particularly obliged to him, he said, for restoring this rule to him,as it was a present from the master of a vessel, who employed his fatherto do carpenter’s work for him. “One should not praise one’s self, theysay,” continued Carlo, “but I long so much to gain your good opinion,that I must tell you the whole history of the rule you have restored. Itwas given to me for having measured the work and made up the bill of awhole pleasure-boat myself. You may guess I should have been sorryenough to have lost it. Thank you for its being once more in my carelesshands, and tell me, I beg, whenever I can do you any service. By-the-by,I can make up for you a fruit stall. I’ll do it to-morrow, and it shallbe the admiration of the market. Is there anything else you could thinkof for me?”
“Why, yes,” said Francisco; “since you are so good-natured, perhaps you’dbe kind enough to tell me the meaning of some of those lines and figuresthat I see upon your rule. I have a great curiosity to know their use.”
“That I’ll explain to you with pleasure, as far as I know them myself;but when I’m at fault, my father, who is cleverer than I am, andunderstands trigonometry, can help us out.”
“Trigonometry!” repeated Francisco, not a little alarmed at the highsounding word; “that’s what I certainly shall never understand.”
“Oh, never fear,” replied Carlo, laughing. “I looked just as you donow—I felt just as you do now—all in a fright and a puzzle, when I firstheard of angles and sines, and cosines, and arcs and centres, andcomplements and tangents.”
“Oh mercy! mercy!” interrupted Francisco, whilst Carlo laughed, with abenevolent sense of superiority.
“Why,” said Carlo, “you’ll find all these things are nothing when you areused to them. But I cannot explain my rule to you here broiling in thesun. Besides, it will not be the work of a day, I promise you; but comeand see us at your leisure hours, and we’ll study it together. I have agreat notion we shall become friends; and, to begin, step in with menow,” said Carlo, “and eat a little macaroni with us. I know it is readyby this time. Besides, you’ll see my father, and he’ll show you plentyof rules and compasses, as you like such things; and then I’ll go homewith you in the cool of the evening, and you shall show me your melonsand vines, and teach me, in time, something of gardening. Oh, I see wemust be good friends, just made for each other; so come in—no ceremony.”
Carlo was not mistaken in his predictions; he and Francisco became verygood friends, spent all their leisure hours together, either in Carlo’sworkshop or in Francisco’s vineyard, and they mutually improved eachother. Francisco, before he saw his friend’s rule, knew but just enoughof arithmetic to calculate in his head the price of the fruit which hesold in the market; but with Carlo’s assistance, and the ambition tounderstand the tables and figures upon the wonderful rule, he set to workin earnest, and in due time, satisfied both himself and his master.
“Who knows but these things that I am learning now may be of some use tome before I die?” said Francisco, as he was sitting one morning with histutor, the carpenter.
“To be sure it will,” said the carpenter, putting down his compasses,with which he was drawing a circle—“Arithmetic is a most useful, and Iwas going to say necessary thing to be known by men in all stations; anda little trigonometry does no harm. In short, my maxim is, that noknowledge comes amiss; for a man’s head is of as much use to him as hishands; and even more so.
“A word to the wise will always suffice.”
“Besides, to say nothing of making a fortune, is not there a greatpleasure in being something of a scholar, and being able to pass one’stime with one’s book, and one’s compasses and pencil? Safe companionsthese for young and old. No one gets into mischief that has pleasantthings to think of and to do when alone; and I know, for my part, thattrigon
ometry is—”
Here the carpenter, just as he was going to pronounce a fresh panegyricupon his favourite trigonometry, was interrupted by the sudden entranceof his little daughter Rosetta, all in tears: a very unusual spectacle,for, taking the year round, she shed fewer tears than any child of herage in Naples.
“Why, my dear good humoured little Rosetta, what has happened? Why theselarge tears?” said her brother Carlo, and he went up to her, and wipedthem from her cheeks. “And these that are going over the bridge of thenose so fast? I must stop these tears, too,” said Carlo.
Rosetta, at this speech, burst out laughing, and said that she did notknow till then that she had any bridge on her nose.
“And were these shells the cause of the tears?” said her brother, lookingat a heap of shells, which she held before her in her frock.
“Yes, partly,” said Rosetta. “It was partly my own fault, but not all.You know I went out to the carpenter’s yard, near the arsenal, where allthe children are picking up chips and sticks so busily; and I was as busyas any of them, because I wanted to fill my basket soon; and then Ithought I should sell my basketful directly in the little wood-market.As soon as I had filled my basket, and made up my faggot (which was notdone, brother, till I was almost baked by the sun, for I was forced towait by the carpenters for the bits of wood to make up my faggot)—I say,when it was all ready, and my basket full, I left it altogether in theyard.”
“That was not wise to leave it,” said Carlo.
“But I only left it for a few minutes, brother, and I could not thinkanybody would be so dishonest as to take it whilst I was away. I onlyjust ran to tell a boy, who had picked up all these beautiful shells uponthe sea-shore, and who wanted to sell them, that I should be glad to buythem from him, if he would only be so good as to keep them for me, for anhour or so, till I had carried my wood to market, and till I had sold it,and so had money to pay him for the shells.”
“Your heart was set mightily on these shells, Rosetta.”
“Yes; for I thought you and Francisco, brother, would like to have themfor your nice grotto that you are making at Resina. That was the reasonI was in such a hurry to get them. The boy who had them to sell was verygood-natured; he poured them into my lap, and said I had such an honestface he would trust me, and that as he was in a great hurry, he could notwait an hour whilst I sold my wood; but that he was sure I would pay himin the evening, and he told me that he would call here this evening forthe money. But now what shall I do, Carlo? I shall have no money togive him: I must give back his shells, and that’s a great pity.”
“But how happened it that you did not sell your wood?”
“Oh, I forgot; did not I tell you that? When I went for my basket, doyou know it was empty, quite empty, not a chip left? Some dishonestperson had carried it all off. Had not I reason to cry now, Carlo?’
“I’ll go this minute into the wood-market, and see if I can find yourfaggot. Won’t that be better than crying?” said her brother. “Shouldyou know any one of your pieces of wood again if you were to see them?”
“Yes, one of them, I am sure, I should know again,” said Rosetta. “Ithad a notch at one end of it, where one of the carpenters cut it off fromanother piece of wood for me.”
“And is this piece of wood from which the carpenter cut it still to beseen?” said Francisco.
“Yes, it is in the yard; but I cannot bring it to you, for it is veryheavy.”
“We can go to it,” said Francisco, “and I hope we shall recover yourbasketful.”
Carlo and his friend went with Rosetta immediately to the yard, near thearsenal, saw the notched piece of wood, and then proceeded to the littlewood-market, and searched every heap that lay before the little factors;but no notched bit was to be found, and Rosetta declared that she did notsee one stick that looked at all like any of hers.
On their part, her companions eagerly untied their faggots to show themto her, and exclaimed, “That they were incapable of taking what did notbelong to them; that of all persons they should never have thought oftaking anything from the good natured little Rosetta, who was alwaysready to give to others, and to help them in making up their loads.”
Despairing of discovering the thief, Francisco and Carlo left the market.As they were returning home, they were met by the English servant Arthur,who asked Francisco where he had been, and where he was going.
As soon as he heard of Rosetta’s lost faggot, and of the bit of wood,notched at one end, of which Rosetta drew the shape with a piece ofchalk, which her brother had lent her, Arthur exclaimed, “I have seensuch a bit of wood as this within this quarter of an hour; but I cannotrecollect where. Stay! this was at the baker’s, I think, where I wentfor some rolls for my master. It was lying beside his oven.”
To the baker’s they all went as fast as possible, and they got there butjust in time. The baker had in his hand the bit of wood with which hewas that instant going to feed his oven.
“Stop, good Mr. Baker!” cried Rosetta, who ran into the baker’s shopfirst; and as he heard “Stop! stop!” re-echoed by many voices, the bakerstopped; and turning to Francisco, Carlo and Arthur, begged, with acountenance of some surprise, to know why they had desired him to stop.
The case was easily explained, and the baker told them that he did notbuy any wood in the little market that morning; that this faggot he hadpurchased between the hours of twelve and one from a lad aboutFrancisco’s height, whom he met near the yard of the arsenal.
“This is my bit of wood, I am sure; I know it by this notch,” saidRosetta.
“Well,” said the baker, “if you will stay here a few minutes, you willprobably see the lad who sold it to me. He desired to be paid in bread,and my bread was not quite baked when he was here. I bid him call againin an hour, and I fancy he will be pretty punctual, for he lookeddesperately hungry.”
The baker had scarcely finished speaking when Francisco, who was standingwatching at the door, exclaimed, “Here comes Piedro! I hope he is notthe boy who sold you the wood, Mr. Baker?”
“He is the boy, though,” replied the baker, and Piedro, who now enteredthe shop, started at the sight of Carlo and Francisco, whom he had neverseen since the day of disgrace in the fruit-market.
“Your servant, Signor Piedro,” said Carlo; “I have the honour to tell youthat this piece of wood, and all that you took out of the basket, whichyou found in the yard of the arsenal, belongs to my sister.”
“Yes, indeed,” cried Rosetta.
Piedro being very certain that nobody saw him when he emptied Rosetta’sbasket, and imagining that he was suspected only upon the bare assertionof a child like Rosetta, who might be baffled and frightened out of herstory, boldly denied the charge, and defied any one to prove him guilty.
“He has a right to be heard in his own defence,” said Arthur, with thecool justice of an Englishman; and he stopped the angry Carlo’s arm, whowas going up to the culprit with all the Italian vehemence of oratory andgesture. Arthur went on to say something in bad Italian about theexcellence of an English trial by jury, which Carlo was too much enragedto hear, but to which Francisco paid attention, and turning to Piedro, heasked him if he was willing to be judged by twelve of his equals?
“With all my heart,” said Piedro, still maintaining an unmovedcountenance, and they returned immediately to the little wood-market. Ontheir way, they had passed through the fruit-market, and crowds of thosewho were well acquainted with Piedro’s former transactions followed, tohear the event of the present trial.
Arthur could not, especially as he spoke wretched Italian, make the eagerlittle merchants understand the nature and advantages of an English trialby jury. They preferred their own summary mode of proceeding.Francisco, in whose integrity they all had perfect confidence, was chosenwith unanimous shouts for the judge; but he declined the office, andanother was appointed. He was raised upon a bench, and the guilty butinsolent looking Piedro, and the ingenuous, modest Rosetta stood beforehim. She mad
e her complaint in a very artless manner; and Piedro, withingenuity, which in a better cause would have deserved admiration, spokevolubly and craftily in his own defence. But all that he could say couldnot alter facts. The judge compared the notched bit of wood found at thebaker’s with a piece from which it was cut, which he went to see in theyard of the arsenal. It was found to fit exactly. The judge then foundit impossible to restrain the loud indignation of all the spectators.The prisoner was sentenced never more to sell wood in the market; and themoment sentence was pronounced, Piedro was hissed and hooted out of themarket-place. Thus a third time he deprived himself of the means ofearning his bread.
We shall not dwell upon all his petty methods of cheating in the tradeshe next attempted. He handed lemonade about in a part of Naples where hewas not known, but he lost his customers by putting too much water andtoo little lemon into this beverage. He then took to the waters from thesulphurous springs, and served them about to foreigners; but one day, ashe was trying to jostle a competitor from the coach door, he slipped hisfoot, and broke his glasses. They had been borrowed from an old woman,who hired out glasses to the boys who sold lemonade. Piedro knew that itwas the custom to pay, of course, for all that was broken; but this hewas not inclined to do. He had a few shillings in his pocket, andthought that it would be very clever to defraud this poor woman of herright, and to spend his shillings upon what he valued much more than hedid his good name—macaroni. The shillings were soon gone.
We shall now for the present leave Piedro to his follies and his fate;or, to speak more properly, to his follies and their inevitableconsequences.
Francisco was all this time acquiring knowledge from his new friends,without neglecting his own or his father’s business. He contrived,during the course of autumn and winter, to make himself a tolerablearithmetician. Carlo’s father could draw plans in architecture neatly;and pleased with the eagerness Francisco showed to receive instruction,he willingly put a pencil and compasses into his hand, and taught him allhe knew himself. Francisco had great perseverance, and, by repeatedtrials, he at length succeeded in copying exactly all the plans which hismaster lent him. His copies, in time, surpassed the originals, and Carloexclaimed, with astonishment: “Why, Francisco, what an astonishing_genius_ you have for drawing!—Absolutely you draw plans better than myfather!”
“As to genius,” said Francisco, honestly, “I have none. All that I havedone has been done by hard labour. I don’t know how other people dothings; but I am sure that I never have been able to get anything donewell but by patience. Don’t you remember, Carlo, how you and evenRosetta laughed at me the first time your father put a pencil into myawkward, clumsy hands?”
“Because,” said Carlo, laughing again at the recollection, “you held yourpencil so drolly; and when you were to cut it, you cut it just as if youwere using a pruning-knife to your vines; but now it is your turn tolaugh, for you surpass us all. And the times are changed since I setabout to explain this rule of mine to you.”
“Ay, that rule,” said Francisco—“how much I owe to it! Some greatpeople, when they lose any of their fine things, cause the crier topromise a reward of so much money to anyone who shall find and restoretheir trinket. How richly have you and your father rewarded me forreturning this rule!”
Francisco’s modesty and gratitude, as they were perfectly sincere,attached his friends to him most powerfully; but there was one person whoregretted our hero’s frequent absences from his vineyard at Resina. NotFrancisco’s father, for he was well satisfied his son never neglected hisbusiness; and as to the hours spent in Naples, he had so much confidencein Francisco that he felt no apprehensions of his getting into badcompany. When his son had once said to him, “I spend my time at such aplace, and in such and such a manner,” he was as well convinced of itsbeing so as if he had watched and seen him every moment of the day. Butit was Arthur who complained of Francisco’s absence.
“I see, because I am an Englishman,” said he, “you don’t value myfriendship, and yet that is the very reason you ought to value it; nofriends so good as the English, be it spoken without offence to yourItalian friend, for whom you now continually leave me to dodge up anddown here in Resina, without a soul that I like to speak to, for you arethe only Italian I ever liked.”
“You shall like another, I promise you,” said Francisco. “You must comewith me to Carlo’s, and see how I spend my evenings; then complain of me,if you can.”
It was the utmost stretch of Arthur’s complaisance to pay this visit;but, in spite of his national prejudices and habitual reserve of temper,he was pleased with the reception he met with from the generous Carlo andthe playful Rosetta. They showed him Francisco’s drawings withenthusiastic eagerness; and Arthur, though no great judge of drawing, wasin astonishment, and frequently repeated, “I know a gentleman who visitsmy master who would like these things. I wish I might have them to showhim.”
“Take them, then,” said Carlo; “I wish all Naples could see them,provided they might be liked half as well as I like them.”
Arthur carried off the drawings, and one day, when his master was betterthan usual, and when he was at leisure, eating a dessert of Francisco’sgrapes, he entered respectfully, with his little portfolio under his arm,and begged permission to show his master a few drawings done by thegardener’s son, whose grapes he was eating.
Though not quite so partial a judge as the enthusiastic Carlo, thisgentleman was both pleased and surprised at the sight of these drawings,considering how short a time Francisco had applied himself to this art,and what slight instructions he had received. Arthur was desired tosummon the young artist. Francisco’s honest, open manner, joined to theproofs he had given of his abilities, and the character Arthur gave himfor strict honesty, and constant kindness to his parents, interested Mr.Lee, the name of this English gentleman, much in his favour. Mr. Lee wasat this time in treaty with an Italian painter, whom he wished to engageto copy for him exactly some of the cornices, mouldings, tablets, andantique ornaments which are to be seen amongst the ruins of the ancientcity of Herculaneum. {326}