"Well," answered Antonio, "I make my friends pay sixteen pauls the quarteruolo, but he, being an Englishman, I charged double."
"What!" exclaimed the goatherd, "thirty-two pauls for a quarteruolo!"
"Ay, and he paid me money down without haggling about the price, like one of our 'paini.'[9] These Englishmen are real gentlemen—they let themselves be cheated without wincing. Those are the sort of men I like to deal with. I was quite angry with myself afterwards at not having asked four times the sum; he would be sure to have paid me."
"Accidente! what a swindler!" exclaimed Guiseppe. "Well, they tell me these English roll in wealth; that gold is as common in their country as beans here. They say the streets are paved with it. How I should like to go to those parts, and come back with my pockets filled with the gold that these idiots throw away like dross. I wouldn't fatigue myself all day long in the mountains for a piece of 'maritozza'[10] or a dish of 'polenta.'"[11]
"Ha! ha!" laughed Antonio, "I've no doubt of it. I should like to see you with money, friend Peppe. You'd make a rare use of it."
"Per Bacco! wouldn't I?" answered the goatherd; "you wouldn't catch me sober again until the day of my death. If I could sell my milk to the Englishman at the rate you sell your wine, I'd soon make my fortune."
"Well," said Antonio, "I would try it on if I were you. Perhaps milk isn't to be had in his country."
"Perhaps not," said the goatherd, musingly. "It must be a curious country from all accounts. They tell me they never see the sun from one year's end to the other, and, indeed, how can they, when the sun is here all day? I hear, too, that the fog is so thick that you are obliged to cut it through with a knife as you go along the streets, and that the inhabitants are obliged to burn lamps all day long."
"Yes, I have heard so, too," answered Antonio, "and that they have no wine in their country. Well, upon the whole, I'd sooner live where I am."
"Ah, but the gold that is to be found about the streets," said Guiseppe, "you forget that."