"The ship is here put in,
A Veronese; Michael Cassio,
Lieutenant to the warlike Moor Othello,
Is come on shore."
Othello.
The glance which Ithuel cast around him was brief, but comprehensive. He saw that two of the party in the room were much superior to the other four, and that the last were common Mediterranean mariners. The position which Benedetta occupied in the household could not be mistaken, for she proclaimed herself its mistress by her very air; whether it were in the upper or in the lower room.
"Vino," said Ithuel, with a flourish of the hand, to help along his Italian, this and one or two more being the only words of the language he ventured to use directly, or without calling in the assistance of his interpreter; "vino--vino, vino, Signora."
"Si, si, si, Signore," answered Benedetta, laughing, and this with her meaning eyes so keenly riveted on the person of her new guest, as to make it very questionable whether she were amused by anything but his appearance; "your eccellenza shall be served; but whether at a paul or a half-paul the flask, depends on your own pleasure. We keep wine at both prices, and," glancing toward the table of Andrea Barrofaldi, "usually serve the first to signori of rank and distinction."
"What does the woman say?" growled Ithuel to his interpreter, a Genoese, who, from having served several years in the British navy, spoke English with a very tolerable facility; "you know what we want, and just tell her to hand it over, and I will fork out her St. Paul without more words. What a desperate liking your folks have for saints, Philip-o"--for so Ithuel pronounced Filippo, the name of his companion--"what a desperate liking your folks have for saints, Philip-o, that they must even call their money after them."
"It not so in America, Signor Bolto?" asked the Genoese, after he had explained his wishes to Benedetta, in Italian; "It no ze fashion in your country to honor ze saints?"
"Honor the saints!" repeated Ithuel, looking curiously round him, as he took a seat at a third table, shoving aside the glasses at the same time, and otherwise disposing of everything within reach of his hand, so as to suit his own notions of order, and then leaning back on his chair until the two ends of the uprights dug into the plaster behind him, while the legs on which the fabric was poised cracked with his weight; "honor the saints! we should be much more like to dishonor them! What does any one want to honor a saint for? A saint is but a human--a man like you and me, after all the fuss you make about 'em. Saints abound in my country, if you'd believe people's account of themselves."
"Not quite so, Signor Bolto. You and me no great saint. Italian honor saint because he holy and good."
By this time Ithuel had got his two feet on the round of his seat, his knees spread so as to occupy as much space as an unusual length of leg would permit, and his arms extended on the tops of two chairs, one on each side of him, in a way to resemble what is termed a spread eagle.
Andrea Barrofaldi regarded all this with wonder. It is true, he expected to meet with no great refinement in a wine-house like that of Benedetta; but he was unaccustomed to see such nonchalance of manner in a man of the stranger's class, or, indeed, of any class; the Italian mariners present occupying their chairs in simple and respectful attitudes, as if each man had the wish to be as little obtrusive as possible. Still he let no sign of his surprise escape him, noting all that passed in a grave but attentive silence. Perhaps he saw traces of national peculiarities, if not of national history, in the circumstances.