One franc! It is wonderful how
the thing, worthless as it is, can be made even by the most starving
fingers for such a price. Yet after dangling his toy for a minute, and
gazing, oh, so wistfully! the while out of his big haggard eyes, he
says, "Seventy-five centimes! half a franc!" and still lingers ere he
turns away with a sigh, a weary movement of his emaciated figure and a
longing look on his poor hollow face that make one feel that the
drama we are witnessing is not all comedy. But it is all supremely
interesting to our neighbor, Si'or Pantaleone. He has been keenly
watching the attempted deal, and no doubt wished that his countryman
might succeed. But there was no element of tragedy in the matter for
him, a condition of semi-starvation is too much an ordinary, every-day
and normal spectacle. He looked on more as a retired merchant might
look on at the progress of a bargain for the delivery of a shipload
of grain. Presently, a middle-aged woman and a girl of some fourteen
years station themselves in front of the audience seated outside the
caffe. The elder woman has a guitar, and the girl a violin and some
sheets of music in her hand. The woman has her wonderful wealth of
black hair grandly dressed and as shining as oil can make it. She
has large gilt earrings in her ears, a heavy coral necklace, and a
gaudy-colored shawl in good condition. Whatever might be beneath
and below this is in dark shadow--"et sic melius situm.
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