'So Santi came back with bread, and bill all receipted, and laid it down on a table, and threw a cloth over it. By and by, in comes 'Tonelli. Then the Pope says to him, kindly and smiling:
''I am confident I heard the people crying about bread to-day; now, tell me truly, what is it selling for?'
'Then 'Toneli told him such a lie. [Up went Rita's hands and eyes.]
'Then the Pope says, while he looked so [knitting her brows]:
''Oblige me, if you please, by lifting up that cloth.'
'And'Tonelli did.
'Bread went down six baiocchi next morning!'
'By the way, Rita,' asked Rocjean, 'where is your little brother, Beppo?'
'Oh! he's home,' she answered, 'but I wish you would ask your friend Enrico, the German sculptor, if he won't have him again, for his model.'
'Why, I thought he was using him for his new statue?'