Beppe, the tall, one-eyed man, already referred to, seemed to be the life and spirit of the band. He was a rollicking good-natured fellow, an unpolished _homme du peuple_, but not inadmirable in his qualities of courage and cheerfulness--the kind of man who would have cracked a joke on his death-bed and sung lustily _en route_ to the gallows. He possessed, too, a heroic appetite, and as he made away with enormous heaps of macaroni his spirits rose higher and higher and his voice rose with them. The long-nosed youth was something of an enigma. From the scraps of conversation which, during the repast, fell principally on the subject of food, or the lack of food, during the tramp, I gathered that they had relied principally on his skill and daring in the matter of foraging to keep themselves from actually dying of hunger on their journey. Yet there was about him such a prudent and circumspect air that he might well have hesitated to pick up a pin that "wasn't his'n." He was evidently of an acquisitive turn, however, for over his shoulder was slung a bag which appeared to contain a collection of the most heterogeneous and unserviceable rubbish conceivable. "_Eh!... possono servire!_" ... was all he would volunteer on the subject when I once chaffed him on the subject of his findings. "They may serve yet!..." Somehow this youth struck me at once as a man who had made a mistake. At home as he appeared to be among his comrades, there was yet something about him which suggested that he was out of his proper sphere in the midst of the Anarchists, that he was _desorienté_. He was cut out for an industrious working-man, one that would rise and thrive in his business by hard work and thrift; he was destined by nature to rear a large family and to shine in the ranks of excellent family men. He was moulded for the threshold, poor boy, neither for the revolutionary camp nor for the scaffold, and it was thwarted domestic instinct which led him to steal. There was good nature in his face and weakness; it was the face of a youth easily led, easily influenced for good or bad. As a revolutioniser of his species he was predestined to failure, for years would certainly show him the error of his ways. Old age seemed to be his proper state, and youth in him was altogether a blunder and a mistake. I found myself vainly speculating what on earth could have led him among the Anarchists.