"Here's our friend Isidoro," he cried, as the party seated themselves at table. "He is thinking of getting married, and has come to consult you."
"Bless me, Isidoro Pane, and are you really going to be married?"
"Oh! go along, go along," said the fisherman good-humouredly.
"So you don't care about marrying?" cried Giacobbe, holding a piece of roast meat in both hands, and tearing it apart with teeth that were still sound and strong. "Well, you are a dirty beast. Do you know, sister, he has lovers, all the same."
"I don't believe that."
"It's true, though; take me to heaven if it's not. Yes, he has lovers who suck his blood."
The others laughed like two children at this humourous allusion to Isidoro's leeches. Giacobbe began to cut his meat with a sharp knife, holding it between his teeth and left hand, and muttering that it was as tough as the devil's ear, while his sister and the guest, having once begun, were ready to laugh at everything. Giacobbe's mood, however, suddenly changed, and for some reason which he himself was at a loss to explain, his good spirits of a few hours before deserted him.
"When we have finished, I'll take you to see my 'palace,'" he said. "It will be done in a few days now, and if I wanted to I could rent it right away, but I don't want to; I intend to live in it myself."
"Then you are not going to hire out any more?"
"No, not after a little while; I have worked enough. I have been working for forty years; do you take that in? Yes, it's forty years. No one can say I stole the money I have laid away for my old age."