[2] ‘21 o’clock,’ three hours before the Ave. [↑]
[3] ‘Gisbuse’ are high boots of unblackened leather reaching up to the thighs, worn by sportsmen about Rome. [↑]
[4] ‘Viva!’ or ‘Evviva!’ is a not very uncommon, though rather old-fashioned, mode of hearty greeting. [↑]
BELLACUCCIA.
There was once a pleader[1] who sat writing in his room all day whenever he was not in court.
One day as he so sat there came in at the window a large monkey, and began whisking about the room. The lawyer, pleased with the antics of the monkey, called it scimmia bellacuccia,[2] and caressed and fed it. By-and-by he had to go out on his business, and though he was in some fear of the pranks the monkey might be up to in his absence, he had taken such a fancy to it that he did not like to send it away, and at last left it alone in his apartment.
When he came home, instead of the monkey having been at any mischievous pranks, the whole suite of rooms was put in beautiful order, and out of very scanty materials in the cupboard an excellent dinner was cooked and laid ready.
‘Scimmia bellacuccia! is this your doing!’ said the lawyer, and the monkey nodded assent.
‘Then you are a precious monkey, indeed,’ he replied, and he called it to him and fed it, and gave it part of the dinner.