from a house opposite appeared a singular figure--a tall, thin man in his night-shirt, scantily covered by a short dressing-gown--who rushed into the mêlée, brandishing a cane and trying to strike the vociferous dachshund. Hannibal, relinquishing for the moment his warfare with the canine foes, turned his attention towards this new enemy, but not quickly enough to escape a blow which changed his proud bark into a yelp of dismay. "Don't strike the dog!" called Gray, futilely, in English, as he hurried towards the scene of action. But before he could reach the spot a flying figure had intervened, coming from the opposite direction. Modesta rushed to the dodging Hannibal and picked him up, while she sent a flood of Tuscan sarcasms after his now retreating antagonist. "Two-legged brutes are much worse than four-legged ones," she announced, loudly; "and as to the quality of the _legs_, there can be no comparison." The thin human limbs were, indeed, only too plainly visible below the insufficient garments, and she wittily enumerated their weak points for the benefit of the gazing heads which had now appeared at all the windows of the neighborhood, as the distracted man, losing first one of his slippers and then the other, finally seized them in his hand, and, getting his door open at last, disappeared within. "Figure it to yourself--a Professor! Legs like that for the _literary_ profession!" was the waitress's final thrust. After breakfast, as Dennison and Gray were sitting in the garden, she appeared. "Lordships will excuse, but it seemed best that they should know. The paw of Annibale is wounded; likewise his shoulder and one ear. I have put on a lotion and bandaged him, and he has shown the patience of an angel. But that he suffers is visible, and I therefore ask the master, could I leave him here while I go to mass, so that he may not be lonely, Peppino having gone to town?" "Oh, bring him, if you like," said Dennison. "Little scamp!" he added in English. Modesta went off, returning after a minute or two, carrying Hannibal in his basket. The dog reposed on his cushions with the air of a wounded hero; he was arrayed in a complicated bandage of coarse white linen, which swathed one paw and encircled his shoulder and head. "To think of any one's being such a brute as to injure a creature so small!" said Modesta, after she had put the basket gently down in the shade. "But, without doubt, there are in this world absolute demons!" "You hypocrite!" said Dennison to Hannibal, after the waitress had departed. "You go every morning of your life at dawn to wake up that poor man by a row with the Ciardelli dogs--you know you do! He is a teacher of languages from Florence, who is here for six months of rest," he added to Gray. "He has not had much rest so far! He has already thrown all his boots and shoes at Hannibal through the window more than once. This morning I suppose he was desperate." "Is your paw _very_ bad, Hannibal?" inquired Gray.