"You busy?" Jerry asked, a sudden thought striking him.
"No—no," replied the Neapolitan, his face as eager as his tone. "What-a you like see? Eh? Some of dose oder curiosities forse?" he asked with a suggestive smile.
"Thanks, no," Jerry returned dryly; "but if you aren't busy, I wish you'd walk along with me. I'm bored—tired—'most to death, and I fancy you might tell me how I may best kill time for the next few days."
The little guide was delighted. He suggested a multitude of things which might be done,—visits to Castellmare and Sorrento or Amalfi; wonders the signor had neglected in the museum; the pasta shops; and so on for a variety of possible and impossible diversions. But still Taberman shook his head. He wanted to be amused, but he was lonely and rather homesick, so that while he regretted being so difficult, nothing appealed to him. Finally, the guide, quite at his wit's end but still bland, smiling, patient, obsequious, and apparently unruffled by the careless way in which the American rejected all his suggestions one after the other, mentioned Pesto.
"Pesto?" queried Tab carelessly. "What is that?"
"Si! Pesto. It ees dere dey hav-a de gret-a temple; t'ree gret-a temple, all put een de row-a,—uno, due, tre." And he held up three fingers to make his statement at once clearer and more emphatic.
"Temples? Real ones?" asked Jerry. "I mean are they old—Roman, that is—or just churches?"
"Ma verament'," laughed the valet de place, "ci son' tre templi; bot-a dey not-a Roman; dey Gre'k. Fin-a, big-a temple; big-a like Hôtel du Vesuve!"
He waved his spread arms as if he would embrace the universe. Jerry laughed at the little man's enthusiasm, but his interest was excited.
"Greek, eh?" he said. "How far is it? How do you get there?"