Brancaccia understood enough to know we were talking about Ricuzzu. She left off clearing away, and snatched the baby out of Carmelo’s arms, whispering to me: “I know it is all right, but I shall feel safer if I have him.”
Peppino, who was lying on his back, observed her agitation out of the corner of his eye and said to me, maliciously speaking Italian so that she should understand:
“If you would like to eat the baby, please say whether
Carmelo shall boil him or cut him up and stew him alla cacciatora.”
“Thank you, no. I prefer Ricuzzu alive.”
“You are a bad papa,” said Brancaccia, “and the compare is a good man.”
So she gave me the baby as a reward and slapped her husband’s cheek as a punishment. Peppino naturally retaliated, and in a moment they were rolling over and over and bear-fighting like a couple of kittens at play, while Carmelo and I sat and laughed at them, and the baby crowed and clapped his hands and grew so excited I could scarcely hold him.
There came a pause and Peppino said: “My dear, if you will leave off boxing my ears I will tell you a secret.”
Brancaccia instantly desisted and went and sat apart to recover herself.
Peppino continued: “I knew the compare would refuse to eat the baby. He does not like our Sicilian dishes. Every time he comes to see us it is a penitenza for him, because he cannot eat food grown in our island. But I know what I shall do. I shall send a telegram to London: ‘English gentleman starving in Castellinaria. Please send at once one chop, one bottle of stout.’