"Good!" said Rollo. "I'll take the business if you will only give me the money."
"How much will it require, Vittorio, for each day, to do the thing up handsomely?" asked Mr. George.
Vittorio immediately began to make a calculation. He reckoned in pauls, the money which is used most in the central parts of Italy. The substance of his calculation was, that for the whole party about half a dollar would be a proper sum to pay to the domestic at the hotel where they stopped for the night, and a quarter of a dollar or less at noon. Then there were chambermaids, ostlers, and drivers of extra horses or oxen to help up the long hills, all of whom would like a small buono mano. This would bring the amount up to about six francs, or a dollar and a quarter a day, on the plan of doing the thing up handsomely, as Mr. George had proposed.
"You mean to be generous with them, uncle George," said Rollo.
"Yes," said Mr. George. "In travelling in Italy, pay out liberally to every body that renders you any service, but not a sou to beggars. That's my rule."
"Besides," he continued, "it is good policy for us to be generous in this case, for Mrs. Gray will pay two thirds of the money. So that you and I, sitting in the coop, as you call it, will have all the pleasure of the generosity, with only one third of the expense of it."
While Mr. George was saying this, he took his wallet out of his pocket, and opened to the compartment of it which contained napoleons.
"Let us see," said he; "we shall be ten days on the way in going to Naples, and Sunday makes eleven. Six francs a day for eleven days makes sixty-six francs."
So saying, he took out three gold napoleons, for the sixty francs, and six francs in silver, and handing the whole to Rollo, said, "There's the money."
"But, uncle George," said Rollo, "I can't pay the buono manos in gold."