The Parent's Assistant Part 57

'Oh, never mind thanking him now,' interrupted Rosetta, 'but look yonder, and tell me what all those people are about.' She pointed to a group of men, women, and children, who were a.s.sembled under a piazza, listening in various att.i.tudes of attention to a man, who was standing upon a flight of steps, speaking in a loud voice, and with much action, to the people who surrounded him. Francisco, Carlo, and Rosetta joined his audience. The moon shone full upon his countenance, which was very expressive, and which varied frequently according to the characters of the persons whose history he was telling, and according to all the changes of their fortune. This man was one of those who are called Improvisatori--persons who, in Italian towns, go about reciting verses or telling stories, which they are supposed to invent as they go on speaking. Some of these people speak with great fluency, and collect crowds round them in the public streets. When an Improvisatore sees the attention of his audience fixed, and when he comes to some very interesting part of his narrative, he dexterously drops his hat upon the ground, and pauses till his auditors have paid tribute to his eloquence.

When he thinks the hat sufficiently full, he takes it up again, and proceeds with his story. The hat was dropped just as Francisco and his two friends came under the piazza. The orator had finished one story, and was going to commence another. He fixed his eyes upon Francisco, then glanced at Carlo and Rosetta, and after a moment's consideration he began a story which bore some resemblance to one that our young English readers may, perhaps, know by the name of 'Cornaro, or the Grateful Turk.'

Francisco was deeply interested in this narrative, and when the hat was dropped, he eagerly threw in his contribution. At the end of the story, when the speaker's voice stopped, there was a momentary silence, which was broken by the orator himself, who exclaimed, as he took up the hat which lay at his feet, 'My friends, here is some mistake! this is not my hat; it has been changed whilst I was taken up with my story. Pray, gentlemen, find my hat amongst you; it was a remarkably good one, a present from a n.o.bleman for an epigram I made. I would not lose my hat for twice its value. It has my name written withinside of it, Dominicho, Improvisatore. Pray, gentlemen, examine your hats.'

Everybody present examined their hats, and showed them to Dominicho, but his was not amongst them. No one had left the company; the piazza was cleared, and searched in vain. 'The hat has vanished by magic.' said Dominicho. 'Yes, and by the same magic a statue moves,' cried Carlo, pointing to a figure standing in a niche, which had hitherto escaped observation. The face was so much in the shade, that Carlo did not at first perceive that the statue was Piedro. Piedro, when he saw himself discovered, burst into a loud laugh, and throwing down Dominicho's hat, which he held in his hand behind him, cried, 'A pretty set of novices!

Most excellent players at hide-and-seek you would make.'

Whether Piedro really meant to have carried off the poor man's hat, or whether he was, as he said, merely in jest, we leave it to those who know his general character to decide.

Carlo shook his head. 'Still at your old tricks, Piedro,' said he.

'Remember the old proverb: No fox so cunning but he comes to the furrier's at last.'[30]

[30] Tutte le volpi si trovano in pellicera.

'I defy the furrier and you too,' replied Piedro, taking up his own ragged hat. 'I have no need to steal hats; I can afford to buy better than you'll have upon your head. Francisco, a word with you, if you have done crying at the pitiful story you have been listening to so attentively.'

'And what would you say to me?' said Francisco, following him a few steps. 'Do not detain me long, because my friends will wait for me.'

'If they are friends, they can wait,' said Piedro. 'You need not be ashamed of being seen in my company now, I can tell you; for I am, as I always told you I should be, the richest man of the two.'

'Rich! you rich?' cried Francisco. 'Well, then, it was impossible you could mean to trick that poor man out of his good hat.'

'Impossible!' said Piedro. Francisco did not consider that those who have habits of pilfering continue to practise them often, when the poverty which first tempted them to dishonesty ceases. 'Impossible! You stare when I tell you I am rich; but the thing is so. Moreover, I am well with my father at home. I have friends in Naples, and I call myself Piedro the Lucky. Look you here,' said he, producing an old gold coin.

'This does not smell of fish, does it? My father is no longer a fisherman, nor I either. Neither do I sell sugar-plums to children; nor do I slave myself in a vineyard, like some folks; but fortune, when I least expected it, has stood my friend. I have many pieces of gold like this. Digging in my father's garden, it was my luck to come to an old Roman vessel full of gold. I have this day agreed for a house in Naples for my father. We shall live, whilst we can afford it, like great folks, you will see; and I shall enjoy the envy that will be felt by some of my old friends, the little Neapolitan merchants, who will change their note when they see my change of fortune. What say you to all this, Francisco the Honest?'

'That I wish you joy of your prosperity, and hope you may enjoy it long and well.'

'Well, no doubt of that. Every one who has it enjoys it _well_. He always dances well to whom fortune pipes.'[31]

[31] a.s.sai ben balla a chi fortuna suona.

'Yes, no longer pipe, no longer dance,' replied Francisco; and here they parted; for Piedro walked away abruptly, much mortified to perceive that his prosperity did not excite much envy, or command any additional respect from Francisco.

'I would rather,' said Francisco, when he returned to Carlo and Rosetta, who waited for him under the portico, when he left them--'I would rather have such good friends as you, Carlo and Arthur, and some more I could name, and, besides that, have a clear conscience, and work honestly for my bread, than be as lucky as Piedro. Do you know he has found a treasure, he says, in his father's garden--a vase full of gold? He showed me one of the gold pieces.'

'Much good may they do him. I hope he came honestly by them,' said Carlo; 'but ever since the affair of the double measure, I suspect double-dealing always from him. It is not our affair, however. Let him make himself happy his way, and we ours.

'He that would live in peace and rest, Must hear, and see, and say the best.'[32]

All Piedro's neighbours did not follow this peaceable maxim; for when he and his father began to circulate the story of the treasure found in the garden, the village of Resina did not give them implicit faith. People nodded and whispered, and shrugged their shoulders; then crossed themselves and declared that they would not, for all the riches of Naples, change places with either Piedro or his father. Regardless, or pretending to be regardless, of these suspicions, Piedro and his father persisted in their a.s.sertions. The fis.h.i.+ng-nets were sold, and everything in their cottage was disposed of; they left Resina, went to live at Naples, and, after a few weeks, the matter began to be almost forgotten in the village.

[32] Odi, vedi, taci, se vuoi viver in pace.

The old gardener, Francisco's father, was one of those who endeavoured to _think the best_; and all that he said upon the subject was, that he would not exchange Francisco the Honest for Piedro the Lucky; that one can't judge of the day till one sees the evening as well as the morning.[33]

[33] La vita il fine,--e di loda la sera. Compute the morn and evening of their day.--POPE.

Not to leave our readers longer in suspense, we must inform them that the peasants of Resina were right in their suspicions. Piedro had never found any treasure in his father's garden, but he came by his gold in the following manner:--

After he was banished from the little wood-market for stealing Rosetta's basketful of wood, after he had cheated the poor woman, who let gla.s.ses out to hire, out of the value of the gla.s.ses which he broke, and, in short, after he had entirely lost his credit with all who knew him, he roamed about the streets of Naples, reckless of what became of him.

He found the truth of the proverb, 'that credit lost is like a Venice gla.s.s broken--it can't be mended again.' The few s.h.i.+llings which he had in his pocket supplied him with food for a few days. At last he was glad to be employed by one of the peasants who came to Naples to load their a.s.ses with manure out of the streets. They often follow very early in the morning, or during the night-time, the trace of carriages that are gone, or that are returning from the opera; and Piedro was one night at this work, when the horses of a n.o.bleman's carriage took fright at the sudden blaze of some fireworks. The carriage was overturned near him; a lady was taken out of it, and was hurried by her attendants into a shop, where she stayed till her carriage was set to rights. She was too much alarmed for the first ten minutes after her accident to think of anything; but after some time, she perceived that she had lost a valuable diamond cross, which she had worn that night at the opera. She was uncertain where she had dropped it; the shop, the carriage, the street were searched for it in vain.

Piedro saw it fall as the lady was lifted out of the carriage, seized upon it, and carried it off. Ignorant as he was of the full value of what he had stolen, he knew not how to satisfy himself as to this point, without trusting some one with the secret.

After some hesitation, he determined to apply to a Jew, who, as it was whispered, was ready to buy everything that was offered to him for sale, without making any _troublesome_ inquiries. It was late; he waited till the streets were cleared, and then knocked softly at the back door of the Jew's house. The person who opened the door for Piedro was his own father. Piedro started back; but his father had fast hold of him.

'What brings you here?' said the father, in a low voice, a voice which expressed fear and rage mixed.

'Only to ask my way--my shortest way,' stammered Piedro.

'No equivocations! Tell me what brings you here at this time of the night? I _will_ know.'

Piedro, who felt himself in his father's grasp, and who knew that his father would certainly search him, to find out what he had brought to sell, thought it most prudent to produce the diamond cross. His father could but just see its l.u.s.tre by the light of a dim lamp which hung over their heads in the gloomy pa.s.sage in which they stood.

'You would have been duped, if you had gone to sell this to the Jew. It is well it has fallen into my hands. How came you by it?' Piedro answered that he had found it in the street. 'Go your ways home, then,'

said the father; 'it is safe with me. Concern yourself no more about it.'

Piedro was not inclined thus to relinquish his booty, and he now thought proper to vary in his account of the manner in which he found the cross.

He now confessed that it had dropped from the dress of a lady, whose carriage was overturned as she was coming home from the opera, and he concluded by saying that, if his father took his prize from him without giving him his share of the profits, he would go directly to the shop where the lady stopped whilst her servants were raising the carriage, and that he would give notice of his having found the cross.

Piedro's father saw that his _smart_ son, though scarcely sixteen years of age, was a match for him in villainy. He promised him that he should have half of whatever the Jew would give for the diamonds, and Piedro insisted upon being present at the transaction.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Jew, who was a man old in all the arts of villainy, contrived to cheat both his a.s.sociates._]

We do not wish to lay open to our young readers scenes of iniquity. It is sufficient to say that the Jew, who was a man old in all the arts of villainy, contrived to cheat both his a.s.sociates, and obtained the diamond cross for less than half its value. The matter was managed so that the transaction remained undiscovered. The lady who lost the cross, after making fruitless inquiries, gave up the search, and Piedro and his father rejoiced in the success of their manoeuvres.

It is said that 'Ill-gotten wealth is quickly spent';[34] and so it proved in this instance. Both father and son lived a riotous life as long as their money lasted, and it did not last many months. What his bad education began, bad company finished, and Piedro's mind was completely ruined by the a.s.sociates with whom he became connected during what he called his _prosperity_. When his money was at an end, these unprincipled friends began to look cold upon him, and at last plainly told him--'If you mean to _live with us_, you must _live as we do_.'

They lived by robbery.

[34] Vien presto consumato l' ingiustamente acquistato.

Piedro, though familiarised to the idea of fraud, was shocked at the thought of becoming a robber by profession. How difficult it is to stop in the career of vice! Whether Piedro had power to stop, or whether he was hurried on by his a.s.sociates, we shall, for the present, leave in doubt.

CHAPTER IV

We turn with pleasure from Piedro the Cunning to Francisco the Honest.

Francisco continued the happy and useful course of his life. By his unremitting perseverance he improved himself rapidly under the instructions of his master and friend, Signor Camillo; his friend, we say, for the fair and open character of Francisco won, or rather earned, the friends.h.i.+p of this benevolent artist. The English gentleman seemed to take a pride in our hero's success and good conduct. He was not one of those patrons who think that they have done enough when they have given five guineas. His servant Arthur always considered every generous action of his master's as his own, and was particularly pleased whenever this generosity was directed towards Francisco.

As for Carlo and the little Rosetta, they were the companions of all the pleasant walks which Francisco used to take in the cool of the evening, after he had been shut up all day at his work. And the old carpenter, delighted with the grat.i.tude of his pupil, frequently repeated--'That he was proud to have given the first instructions to such a _genius_; and that he had always prophesied Francisco would be a _great_ man.' 'And a good man, papa,' said Rosetta; 'for though he has grown so great, and though he goes into palaces now, to say nothing of that place underground, where he has leave to go, yet, notwithstanding all this, he never forgets my brother Carlo and you.'

'That's the way to have good friends,' said the carpenter. 'And I like his way; he does more than he says. Facts are masculine, and words are feminine.'[35]

[35] I fatti sono maschii, le parole femmine.

These good friends seemed to make Francisco happier than Piedro could be made by his stolen diamonds.