"He is dead."
"Oh, dear! Well, where is your mother, then?"
"She is dead, too."
"Well, there is always a grandfather and a grandmother, or something. Where are yours?"
"All dead."
"At any rate, everybody has some brothers or sisters; where are yours, I should like to know?"
"All are dead," was the sorrowfully repeated answer.
When the driver had convinced himself that they were all gone, he ceased his questions about the relatives, and began in another direction with, "What was your father's name?"
"Henrico Trevillo of Peschiera, on the Lake of Garda."
At last the driver thought he had got at the root of the matter, and said to himself this boy had strayed away, or been carried away, from his home down below there, and it is a good thing for him to get carried back where he belongs; and he thought no more about the affair.