“Signor? He very well. He always well. Why you ask? Anybody tell you he sick?”
“No, nobody said he was sick. I have n't seen him going about for a day or two, and I thought he might have something the matter with him. Is he in the house now?”
“No: he off riding. He take long, long rides, sometime gone all day. Sometime he go on lake, paddle, paddle in the morning, very, very early,—in night when the moon shine; sometime stay in house, and read, and study, and write,—he great scholar, Misser Kirkwood.”
“A good many books, has n't he?”
“He got whole shelfs full of books. Great books, little books, old books, new books, all sorts of books. He great scholar, I tell you.”
“Has n't he some curiosities,—old figures, old jewelry, old coins, or things of that sort?”
Paolo looked at the young man cautiously, almost suspiciously. “He don't keep no jewels nor no money in his chamber. He got some old things,—old jugs, old brass figgers, old money, such as they used to have in old times: she don't pass now.” Paolo's genders were apt to be somewhat indiscriminately distributed.
A lucky thought struck the Interviewer. “I wonder if he would examine some old coins of mine?” said he, in a modestly tentative manner.
“I think he like to see anything curious. When he come home I ask him. Who will I tell him wants to ask him about old coin?”
“Tell him a gentleman visiting Arrowhead Village would like to call and show him some old pieces of money, said to be Roman ones.”