“No, no, no; I want it now! And if I don’t get it, I will make it a Cabinet question!”
The poor mother, at this speech, finds her understanding failing her, and remains open-mouthed. Then enters Raffaello, the elder brother, who says to the younger—
“Instead of thinking about Punches, you would do better to study your grammar. Remember how yesterday the master, after having three times called you a donkey, ‘passed on to the order of the day, pure and simple.’”
Gigino was about to reply with an impertinence, but, unwilling to fail in respect towards his elder brother, he contented himself with making faces at him.
Mamma (who has meanwhile recovered): “Is that the way you treat your brother? He is older than you, and you ought to respect him.”
Gigino (raising his voice): “I have all possible esteem and respect for the honourable member who has just preceded me”—(the Debates again!); “but, on the other hand, as far as I am concerned, he will always be a liar and a spy....”
Beppino is made of quicksilver. While carrying out one trick he is already thinking of a new one, so that neither in school nor at home is there any peace to be had for him.
At last his father, unable to stand it any longer, called him into the study for a parental lecture.
During the first division of the lecture Beppino was surreptitiously gnawing a dried plum. At the opening of the second division he removed the stone, and shot it at the nose of a plaster Dante on the writing-desk. At the third head Beppino lost all patience, and began to yell—
“Enough! enough! The closure!”