‘Who knows! who knows?’ said Babbo slowly. ‘This lad may, if he join us, have many a good gift we suspect not. Canst sing?’
‘Yes; at least the litanies.’
‘Ah, bravo, Giovane!’ cried the old man. ‘Thou It bring a blessing upon us.’
‘Canst play the fife, the tambourine, the flute?’ asked Gaetana.
‘None of them.’
‘Thou canst recite, I’m sure,’ said Marietta. ‘Thou knowest Tasso and Petrarch, surely, and Guarini?’
‘Yes; and Dante by heart, if that be of any service to me,’ said Gerald.
‘Ah! I know nothing of him,’ said she sorrowfully; ‘but I could repeat the Orlando from beginning to end.’
‘How art thou on the stilts or the slack-rope?’ asked the old woman; ‘for these other things never gave bread to any one.’
‘If I must depend upon the slack-rope, then,’ said Gerald, good-humouredly, ‘I run a good chance of going supperless to bed.’