"Italian!" he said. "What's the use of it? I want to talk to the people. A grammar! I won't open it. Gaspare's my professor. Gaspare! Gaspare!"
Gaspare came rushing bareheaded to them in the sun.
"The signora says I'm to learn Italian, but I say that I've Sicilian blood in my veins and must talk as you do."
"But I, signore, can speak Italian!" said Gaspare, with twinkling pride.
"As a bear dances. No, professor, you and I, we'll be good patriots. We'll speak in our mother-tongue. You rascal, you know we've begun already."
And looking mischievously at Hermione, he began to sing in a loud, warm voice:
"Cu Gabbi e Jochi e Parti e Mascarati,
Si fa lu giubileu universali.
Tiripi-tùmpiti, tùmpiti, tùmpiti,
Milli cardùbuli 'n culu ti pùncinu!"
Gaspare burst into a roar of delighted laughter.
"It's the tarantella over again," Hermione said. "You're a hopeless Sicilian. I give you up."
That same day she said to him: