'Gaetano Galiero, the glove-cutter, sends me——'
'Fine honest fellow he is!' exclaimed Donna Concetta, putting a strip of paper in her thimble—it had got too large.
'If you don't make people speak, you can never get to understand each other,' the hunchback rejoined philosophically. 'Gaetano is under great obligations to you; but you are a fine woman, not wanting in judgment, and you will forgive his failings. What does not happen in a year comes the day you least expect it. Gaetano is here with the money.'
'Yes, yes,' the sisters said, grinning.
'You will see him afterwards. But I have come to speak of an affair of my own. I, thank God, work at a better trade than Gaetano does; I stand beside the Café de Angelis in Carità Square. I don't say it out of boasting, but I polish the shoes of the best nobility in Naples. I can earn what I like; I laugh at ill fortune. When it rains, I stand under the archway of the café door; the dirtier it is in the streets, the more shoes I polish. My good woman, if I had a clear head, I would be a gentleman now. But now, to carry out a big affair that may bring me my carriage, I need a little money; and as you oblige people that way, I have come to propose the business to you. Forty francs would do for me; I would pay it off by three francs a week until I have managed the combination; for then I will give you back capital, interest, and a handsome present.'
'Don't put yourself about,' said Donna Concetta ironically.
'If you won't lend me money, who do you lend to?' the hunchback asked audaciously. 'If I stand all day in front of the café, I earn two francs, do you know. Not even a barber's lad can say as much. So that stand is my fortune, my shop; if I go away from it, I don't earn a half-penny, so I can't run away. Do you see? Ask the coffee-house-keeper who Michele is. Your money is safe in my hands. You will hear all about me from the café-owner.'
'If he guarantees you, I'll give you the money,' Donna Concetta said at once.
'In that case, he would give it himself' the hunchback objected. 'No, no, Michele has no need of a guarantee. Come to-morrow, Saturday, at nine, to the café-owner; you will hear what he says; you will willingly give me sixty instead of forty francs. I am an honest man; I am subject to public scrutiny.'
'Good; we see each other to-morrow. You know what the interest is?' said Donna Concetta.