"Oh." Giorgio's face went red. He lowered his head in embarrassment.
The time for asking questions was nearly up. The Umbrella Man was mixing cement in the old fish tin, gluing the broken dish together, fastening it through the drilled holes with fine wire. While his fingers worked, his eye stole a glance now and then at Giorgio.
"Maybe some year you go to Siena? You see a Palio?"
Giorgio's head jerked up. Of course he would go! Then his eyes widened in sudden panic. Suppose the race stopped before he had saved enough money. Suppose next year, or the next, there should be no Palio!
He spoke his fears aloud.
"Ho! Ho!" The Umbrella Man rocked with laughter. "Palio has always been! That is fine reason why it always will be. You go any year. Time only sharpens the appetite."
At sundown that evening, with the mended dish put away in the cupboard and the umbrella, good as new, hanging on its peg, Giorgio stood before the window at the end of the long room. It was flung wide to the hills of Tuscany, but the boy did not see the trees flaming from the touch of sun, nor the swallows tumbling in the sky, nor the mountains growing bluer with the oncoming night. All he saw was the clay model of the horse in his hands. As he pinched and shaped the legs to a breedy fineness, a piece of leftover clay fell to the floor. He picked it up, examining it in disbelief. Did he imagine, or could anyone see it for what it was?
"Emilio! Teria!" he called. "Come here! Come and see!"
He held up the fanlike piece of clay, the smaller end between his thumb and forefinger, and he moved it toward the head of the horse. "What is it?" he asked, scarcely daring to breathe.