"Nothing," assented Ercole. "I thank you for your conversation. I will take a glass of the aniseed before I go, if you please."
"Are you going already?" asked Paoluccio, as he went to fetch the bottle and the little cast glass from which he himself had drunk.
"Yes," Ercole answered. "I go to Rome. I stopped to refresh myself."
"It will be hot on the road," said Paoluccio, setting the full glass down on the table. "Two sous," he added, as Ercole produced his old sheepskin purse. "Thank you."
"Thank you," Ercole answered, and tipped the spirits down his throat. "Yes, it will be hot, but what can one do? We are used to it, my dog and I. We are not of wax to melt in the sun."
"It is true that this dog does not look as if he were wax," Paoluccio remarked, for the qualities of Nino had not escaped him.
"No. He is not of wax. He is of sugar, all sugar! He has a very sweet nature."
"One would not say so," answered Paoluccio doubtfully. "If you go to the city you must muzzle him, or they will make you pay a fine. Otherwise they will kill him for you."
"Do you think any one would try to catch him if I let him run loose?" asked Ercole, as if in doubt. "He killed a full-grown wolf before he was two years old, and not long ago he worried a sheepdog of the Campagna as if it had been nothing but a lamb. Do you think any one would try to catch him?"
"If it fell to me, I should go to confession first," said Paoluccio.