"Yes. That is why the creature can walk across the ceiling like a fly. But it isn't the only reason, for a sticky substance oozes out, and that helps his feet to fasten themselves. I've seen them do it many times."
"I wonder how they make that queer noise," said Lucy.
"They smack their tongues back in their mouths, somehow," answered Beppo. "They are ugly little things, aren't they? But mother won't let me kill them when they get in the house, because they eat up the flies and spiders."
The children were walking now between two rows of laurel-trees.
"How dark and glossy the leaves are," said Lucy. "I think they are lovely. I like to get them and make wreaths. Then I take them up-stairs and put them on father's and mother's heads. I pretend I am crowning them as the heroes in Italy were crowned long ago." Lucy forgot her Italian and fell into English before she had half finished. It was no wonder that Tessa and Beppo could not understand.
Arthur saw the puzzled look in their faces and tried to explain. He was older than his sister and could speak Italian better than she.
"Lucy means this: I suppose you know that your country was once very great."
Beppo nodded his head. Oh, yes, and he believed it to be very great, still.
"And Rome was the leading city in the whole wide world," Arthur went on. "Great deeds were done by her people; great battles were fought; great books were written; great palaces were built. Well, in the olden times, whenever a person had done some truly great thing, he was crowned with a wreath of laurels. Father told me this, so I know it must be true.