"There is a signora—a relation of mine—who has come to Rome."
"A fair signora? Very beautiful? With a little eye of the devil? I have seen. Thanks be to heaven, one eye is still good. You are dark, and your family is fair. How can it interest me?"
"What? Has she gone out?" asked Griggs, in sudden anxiety. "When?"
"I had guessed!" exclaimed the cobbler, with a grunting laugh, and he ran the delicate bristles, which pointed the yarn, in opposite directions through the hole he had made, caught one yarn round the knot on the handle of the awl and the other round the leather sheath on his left hand. He drew the yarn tight to his arm's length with a vicious jerk.
"When did the signora go out?" enquired Griggs, repeating his question.
"It may be half an hour ago. Apoplexy! If your relations are all as beautiful as that!"
But Griggs was already moving towards the staircase. The cobbler called him back, and he stood still at the foot of the steps.
"There is the little apartment on the left, on the third floor," said the man. "The lodgers went away yesterday. I was going to ask you to write me a notice to put up on the door. As for paying, the padrone will not mind, seeing that you are an old lodger. It is good, do you know? There is sun. There is also a kitchen. There are five rooms with the entry."
"The horror of poverty smote him."—Vol. II., p. 123.