He was obliged to put his fiddle down on the ground; and the coachman looked on very complaisantly while the boy ate his breakfast, and said, while he followed his own occupation,—
"You are a very small fiddler. Do you know how to play something?"
"Oh, yes! two songs, besides those I learned from my father," replied Rico.
"Really! And where are you going to on your two little legs?" said the driver. "To Peschiera, on the Lake of Garda," was the serious answer.
At these words, the coachman burst into such boisterous laughter that the boy gazed up at him in great astonishment.
"Well, you are a good one to travel," cried the man, still laughing. "Have you any notion how far it is, and that a little musician like you could wear out his two feet, and his soles, too, before he could catch sight of a single drop of the water of the Lake of Garda? Who sends you down there?"
"Nobody. I go of my own accord."
"Well, I never have seen the like of you before," said the man, still laughing good-naturedly. "Where, then, is your home, my boy?"
"I do not know exactly. It may be on the Lake of Garda," was the serious answer.
"What sort of reply is that?"