"How does Claudio work?" the mother asked of her son.
"He works well," Matteo replied. "He is worth two of our common fellows, if he is educated."
"Nevertheless, I should not have employed him," the mother said. "He has disobeyed and disappointed his parents, and he should be punished. They meant him to be a priest, and raked and scraped every soldo to educate him. Now, just when he is at the point of being able to repay them, he makes up his mind that he has no vocation for the priesthood, and breaks their hearts by his ingratitude. It is nonsense to set one's will up so and have such scruples. Obedience is vocation enough for anything. There should be a prison where parents could put the children who disobey them."
The Sora Guai spoke sternly, and looked as if she would not have hesitated to put a refractory child in the deepest of dungeons.
"He was a fool, but he earns his money," Matteo responded, and, drawing a plate of deliciously fried frogs toward him, began to gnaw them and throw the bones on the floor.
Silvia gave him the salad, and poured wine and water into the tumbler for him, while his mother went to the kitchen for a dish of fricasseed pigeons.
"There's no onion in the salad," Matteo grumbled when she came back.
Silvia uttered an exclamation of dismay, ran for a silvery-white little onion and sliced it thinly into the salad.
"Forgive me, Matteo," she said. "I was distracted by the thought of Claudio. It seems such a terrible thing."
"It would be a much more terrible thing if it were a girl who disobeyed," Matteo growled. He did not like that girls should criticise men.