"Show me a coat, Signore."
Signore sprang nimbly at the shelves and brought down every coat in his store. Buttons picked out one that suited his fancy, and tried it on.
"What is the price?"
With a profusion of explanation and description the Roman informed him: "Forty piastres."
"I'll give you twelve," said Buttons, quietly.
The Italian smiled, put his head on one side, drew down the corners of his mouth, and threw up his shoulders. This is the _shrug_. The shrug requires special attention. The shrug is a gesture used by the Latin race for expressing a multitude of things, both objectively and subjectively. It is a language of itself. It is, as circumstances require, a noun, adverb, pronoun, verb, adjective, preposition, interjection, conjunction. Yet it does not supersede the spoken language. It comes in rather when spoken words are useless, to convey intensity of meaning or delicacy. It is not taught, but it is learned.
The coarser, or at least blunter, Teutonic race have not cordially adopted this mode of human intercommunication. The advantage of the shrug is that in one slight gesture it contains an amount of meaning which otherwise would require many words. A good shrugger in Italy is admired, just as a good conversationist is in England, or a good stump orator in America. When the merchant shrugged, Buttons understood him and said:
"You refuse? Then I go. Behold me!"
"Ah, Signore, how can you thus endeavor to take advantage of the necessities of the poor?"
"Signore, I must buy according to my ability."