John watched his retreating figure with a sense of irritation--irritation because the man had gone away thinking him an English fool--irritation because, unasked, the hawker had betrayed to him his loss of a sense of humour.
To be offered an English penny for one lira! To be told quite seriously that it was a rare coin! And to take it in all seriousness; to go to the trouble of saying in an injured voice that it was only worth ten centesimi! Was this what he had fallen to? Was his sense of humour so far gone as this? Of course it was a rare coin! Had there not been times when an English penny would have saved him from the dire awkwardness of an impossible position. How about the chair in Kensington Gardens? How about the friend who mounted the 'bus with him in the cheerful expectation that he was going to pay? Of course it was a rare coin! Why, there were times when it was worth a hundred lire!
He called the hawker back.
"Give me that coin," he said.
The man took it out with a grin of surprise.
"It cost me half a lira, signor," he said, which was a lie. But he told it so excellently that John paid him his price.
"Do you think they'll find it worth a candle at the shrine of St. Anthony?" asked John.
"You have lost something, signor?"
He said it so sympathetically.
"My sense of humour," said John, and off he strode to St. Mark's, the hawker gazing after him.