So!--a love-gift, signor, or an in memoriam of the dear and valued friend you have lost? I wondered--watching him in dark scorn the while--then recollecting myself, I sauntered slowly toward him, and perceiving a disengaged table next to his, I drew a chair to it and sat down He looked at me in differently over the top of his newspaper--but there was nothing specially attractive in the sight of a white-haired man wearing smoke-colored spectacles, and he resumed his perusal of the "Figaro" immediately. I rapped the end of my walking-cane on the table and summoned a waiter from whom I ordered coffee. I then lighted a cigar, and imitating Ferrari's easy posture, smoked also. Something in my attitude then appeared to strike him, for he laid down his paper and again looked at me, this time with more interest and something of uneasiness. "Ca commence, mon ami!" I thought, but I turned my head slightly aside and feigned to be absorbed in the view. My coffee was brought--I paid for it and tossed the waiter an unusually large gratuity--he naturally found it incumbent upon him to polish my table with extra zeal, and to secure all the newspapers, pictorial or otherwise, that were lying about, for the purpose of obsequiously depositing them in a heap at my right hand. I addressed this amiable garcon in the harsh and deliberate accents of my carefully disguised voice.
"By the way, I suppose you know Naples well?"
"Oh, si, signor!"
"Ebbene, can you tell me the way to the house of one Count Fabio Romani, a wealthy nobleman of this city?"
Ha! a good hit this time! Though apparently not looking at him I saw Ferrari start as though he had been stung, and then compose himself in his seat with an air of attention. The waiter meanwhile, in answer to my question, raised his hands, eyes and shoulders all together with a shrug expressive of resigned melancholy.
"Ah, gran Dio! e morto!"
"Dead!" I exclaimed, with a pretended start of shocked surprise. "So young? Impossible!"
"Eh! what will you, signor? It was la pesta; there was no remedy. La pesta cares nothing for youth or age, and spares neither rich nor poor."
For a moment I leaned my head on my hand, affecting to be overcome by the suddenness of the news. Then looking up, I said, regretfully: "Alas! I am too late! I was a friend of his father's. I have been away for many years, and I had a great wish to meet the young Romani whom I last saw as a child. Are there any relations of his living--was he married?"