“Tw-w-wenty crowns!”
“Done!”
“Here, just sign this paper. Good; take your money. You’ll soon be a corporal, if you look up to me.”
“Ha! ha! oh! oh!” laughed the sergeant, “I’ve enlisted my rival; oh! oh! a good tale to tell.”
And he swaggered off, while Nemorino rushed away to buy bottle number two.
CHAPTER IV.
Every woman then and there in the market-place was full of it, and crowded about each other to hear and receive the news. “Did you ever!”—“Oh! quite true!”—“Who would have thought it, you know?”—“Yes but who told you?”—“Hush! not so loud.”—“It’s a secret.”—“Oh, of course!”—cried twenty voices at least. “Because, I heard it from the young grocer (She always hears every thing from the young grocer) who heard it from the mercer, who had it from the lawyer himself; and so you know then it is.”—“Oh, of course; well, I’m sure I should never have thought it.”—“And such a fortune.”—“Why, he’s the richest man in the parish.”—“I wish I had a rich old uncle.”—“Yes, and he never went to see him.”—“All through that Adina.”—“Eugh!”—“There he is!” (Twenty voices again.)
“He” was Nemorino. “He” had run to the doctor, who again fraudulently appropriated the crowns; again “he” had imbibed the elixir of love, and this time he really hoped the elixir would have some effect.
“How humble he looks.”