He shows me three soldi. “Enough for a coffee.”
“And then?”
“God knows.”
So I give him the five francs, and explain my little scheme of making it a loan, and not a gift; and then I give him my address.
He does not appear to understand the scheme of the loan; but he takes the money, and is quite stunned by his good fortune. He thanks me absently, and goes and shows the piece to the guards, with a smile that illumines and transfigures his whole person. At Bologna, he has come to his senses; he loads me with blessings, he is ready to weep; he reverences me, he wishes me a good voyage, endless prosperity, and innumerable days; and takes the train for Ancona.
“Ah, ah!” I congratulate myself,—“is it not a fine thing to be the instrument of a special providence?”
It is pleasant to think of the Mouse during all that journey, and if we are never so tired, it rests us to say, “I wonder where the Mouse is by this time?” When we get home, and coldly count up our expenses, we rejoice in the five francs lent to the Mouse. “And I know he will pay it back if ever he can,” I say. “That was a Mouse of integrity.”
Two weeks later comes a comely young woman, with a young child—a child strong on its legs, a child which tries to open every thing in the room, which wants to pull the cloth off the table, to throw itself out of the open window—a child of which I have never seen the peer for restlessness and curiosity. This young woman has been directed to call on me as a person likely to pay her way to Ferrara. “But who sent you? But, in fine, why should I pay your way to Ferrara? I have never seen you before.”
“My husband, whom you benefited on his way to Ancona, sent me. Here is his letter and the card you gave him.”
I call out to my fellow-victim,—“My dear, here is news of the Mouse!”