“I suppose it would certainly surprise the lieutenant-governor somewhat,” said Mr. Ferris with a laugh. “May I ask,” he pursued after an interval, “whether you have occupied yourself with other inventions?”
“I have attempted a great many,” replied Don Ippolito in a tone of dejection.
“Are they all of this warlike temper?” pursued the consul.
“No,” said Don Ippolito, blushing a little, “they are nearly all of peaceful intention. It was the wish to produce something of utility which set me about this cannon. Those good friends of mine who have done me the honor of looking at my attempts had blamed me for the uselessness of my inventions; they allowed that they were ingenious, but they said that even if they could be put in operation, they would not be what the world cared for. Perhaps they were right. I know very little of the world,” concluded the priest, sadly. He had risen to go, yet seemed not quite able to do so; there was no more to say, but if he had come to the consul with high hopes, it might well have unnerved him to have all end so blankly. He drew a long, sibilant breath between his shut teeth, nodded to himself thrice, and turning to Mr. Ferris with a melancholy bow, said, “Signor Console, I thank you infinitely for your kindness, I beg your pardon for the disturbance, and I take my leave.”
“I am sorry,” said Mr. Ferris. “Let us see each other again. In regard to the inventions,—well, you must have patience.” He dropped into some proverbial phrases which the obliging Latin tongues supply so abundantly for the races who must often talk when they do not feel like thinking, and he gave a start when Don Ippolito replied in English, “Yes, but hope deferred maketh the heart sick.”
It was not that it was so uncommon to have Italians innocently come out with their whole slender stock of English to him, for the sake of practice, as they told him; but there were peculiarities in Don Ippolito’s accent for which he could not account. “What,” he exclaimed, “do you know English?”
“I have studied it a little, by myself,” answered Don Ippolito, pleased to have his English recognized, and then lapsing into the safety of Italian, he added, “And I had also the help of an English ecclesiastic who sojourned some months in Venice, last year, for his health, and who used to read with me and teach me the pronunciation. He was from Dublin, this ecclesiastic.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Ferris, with relief, “I see;” and he perceived that what had puzzled him in Don Ippolito’s English was a fine brogue superimposed upon his Italian accent.
“For some time I have had this idea of going to America, and I thought that the first thing to do was to equip myself with the language.”
“Um!” said Mr. Ferris, “that was practical, at any rate,” and he mused awhile. By and by he continued, more kindly than he had yet spoken, “I wish I could ask you to sit down again: but I have an engagement which I must make haste to keep. Are you going out through the campo? Pray wait a minute, and I will walk with you.”