Fairfax and His Pride: A Novel

by Marie Van Vorst

"Cielo azuro
Giornata splendida,
Mia Maddalena."

Fairfax laughed when he recognized it. He glanced over at Falutini who was leaning out of his window

dejectedly. At the next station, whilst the engine let off steam, Fairfax called to his fireman, and the man, as he turned his face to his chief, looked more miserably homesick than revengeful.

"I used to know a chap from Italy!" Fairfax said in his halting Italian, "a molto bravo diavolo. Shake her down, Tito, and brace her up a little, will you?"

The fireman bent to the furnace, its blast red on his face; from under the belly of the engine the sparks sang as they fell into the water gutter along the track.

"My chap was a marble cutter from Carrara."

Tito banged the door of the furnace. "I too am from Carrara."

"Good!" cried Fairfax, "good enough." And to himself he said: "I'll be darned if I ever knew Benvenuto Cellini's real name!"

"Carrara," continued his companion, "is small. He may have been a cousin. What was his name?"

"Benvenuto Cellini," replied Tony, easily, and rang his bell.