“Good-morning,” said the man. He wore a pleasant air. It seemed to say, “I’m nothing much, but you’ll recognize me in a moment; I’ll wait.” He was short, square, solid, beardless; in years, twenty-five or six. His skin was dark, his hair almost black, his eyebrows strong. In his mild black eyes you could see the whole Mediterranean. His dress was coarse, but clean; his linen soft and badly laundered. But under all the rough garb and careless, laughing manner was visibly written again and again the name of the race that once held the world under its feet.
“You don’t remember me?” he added, after a moment.
“No,” said Richling, pleasantly, but with embarrassment. The man waited another moment, and suddenly Richling recalled their earlier meeting. The man, representing a wholesale confectioner in one of the smaller cities up the river, had bought some cordials and syrups of the house whose books Richling had last put in order.
“Why, yes I do, too!” said Richling. “You left your pocket-book in my care for two or three days; your own private money, you said.”
“Yes.” The man laughed softly. “Lost that money. Sent it to the boss. Boss died—store seized—everything gone.” His English was well pronounced, but did not escape a pretty Italian accent, too delicate for the printer’s art.
“Oh! that was too bad!” Richling laid his hand upon an awning-post and twined an arm and leg around it as though he were a vine. “I—I forget your name.”
“Ristofalo. Raphael Ristofalo. Yours is Richling. Yes, knocked me flat. Not got cent in world.” The Italian’s low, mellow laugh claimed Richling’s admiration.
“Why, when did that happen?” he asked.
“Yes’day,” replied the other, still laughing.
“And how are you going to provide for the future?” Richling asked, smiling down into the face of the shorter man. The Italian tossed the future away with the back of his hand.