Beppo and the donkeys

He wore a loose white shirt—immaculately white—with a red silk handkerchief knotted about his throat, brown corduroy knee-breeches, and a red cotton sash with the hilt of a knife conspicuously protruding. His corduroy jacket was slung carelessly across his shoulders, his hat was cocked jauntily, with a red heron feather stuck in the band; last, perfect touch of all, in his ears—at his ears rather (a close examination revealed the thread)—two golden hoops flashed in the sunlight. His skin was dark—not too dark—just a good healthy out-door tan: his brows level and heavy, his gaze candor itself. He wore a tiny suggestion of a moustache which turned up at the corners (a suspicious examination of this, might have revealed the fact that it was touched up with burnt cork); there was no doubt but that he was a handsome fellow, and his attire suggested that he knew it.

Constance clasped her hands in an ecstasy of admiration.

“Constance clasped her hands in an ecstasy of admiration”

“He’s perfect!” she cried. “Where on earth did Gustavo find him? Did you ever see anything so beautiful?” she appealed to the others. “He looks like a brigand in opera bouffe.”

  The donkey-man reddened visibly and fumbled with his hat.

“My dear,” her father warned, “he understands English.”

She continued to gaze with the open admiration one would bestow upon a picture or a view or a blue-ribbon horse. The man flashed her a momentary glance from a pair of searching gray eyes, then dropped his gaze humbly to the ground.

“Buon giorno,” he said in glib Italian.

Constance studied him more intently. There was something elusively familiar about his expression; she was sure she had seen him before.

“Buon giorno,” she replied in Italian. “You have lived in the United States?”

“Si, signorina.”

“What is your name?”

“I spik Angleesh,” he observed.

 Prev. P 25/107 next