'Yes, sir. We have no soap for sale, but you can get it two doors off.'
Van Brick went out, and after a time returned with a cake of soap.
'Signore,' said the girl, when he went back, 'the water is all running out of the hole in the bottom of the tub, and I can't stop it.'
'H'm! Show me the tub; I am a splendid mechanic.'
The hole being stopped, the tub was rapidly filling with water. Van Brick, in anticipation, was enjoying his bath; when in rushed the attendant.
'Signore, you will have to wait a few minutes—until I wash some towels.'
Van Brick was in extremis. Taking a gold scudo, one of those dear little one-dollar pieces the Romans call far-fálle (butterflies) from his pocket, he thus addressed her:
'Maiden, rush round the corner and buy me a yard of any thing that will dry me; I don't care what it is, except salt fish.'
'Oh! but these English are bursting with money,' thought the girl, and thus thinking, she made great haste, only stopping to tell three or four friends about the crazy man that was round at her place, who didn't want salt fish to make him dry.
'Behold me back again!' said the girl, 'I flew.'