"Yes, I did it as I took off my hat. And every time they seemed so surprised." "I've a new idea, Maso; behold it: the consul of your country!" "Is there one in Leghorn?" asked Maso, vaguely. "Of course there is; I have seen the sign many a time." And Luigi mentioned the street and the number. The proprietor of the shop, who was packing a case of the slender Epiphany trumpets, now broke one by accident, and immediately scolded Luigi in a loud voice; Maso was obliged to make a hasty departure. The office of the representative of the United States government was indicated by a painted shield bearing the insignia of the republic, and a brass plate below, with the following notification: "Consolato degli Stati-Uniti d'America." The first word of this inscription rouses sometimes a vague thrill in the minds of homesick Americans in Italy coming to pay a visit to their flag and the eagle. The thrill, however, is immediately followed by a conviction that whatever the syllables may mean (in an unintelligible land), they do not foreshadow, probably, anything so solacing as they appear at first to indicate. Consolato--a consoling-place; if it were indeed that, the bare room would soon be as celebrated as is in Jerusalem the Wailing-place of the Jews. To Maso, however, there was no double meaning. He glanced at the flag; then he went up the stairs and knocked at the door. As it happened, the consul himself was there alone. Maso, upon entering, took off his hat and tried his smile, then he began: "If you please, I am trying to get a place--something to do. I thought perhaps, sir, that you might--" He stopped, and in his embarrassment put the toe of his shoe into a hole in the matting, and moved it about industriously. "Don't spoil my matting," said the consul. "You're a very young boy to be looking for a place." "I'm going on fourteen." "And of what nation are you?" demanded the consul, after another survey. "Why, I'm American," said Maso, surprised. "I shouldn't have taken you for one. What is your name?" "Maso--I mean Thom-as Ross Coe," replied the boy, bringing out the syllables with something of an Italian pronunciation. "Tummarse Errosco? Do you call that an American name?" "I'll write it," said Maso, blushing. He wrote it in large letters on the edge of a newspaper that was near him. "Thomas R. Coe," read the consul. "Coe is your name, then?" "Yes, sir." "You want something to do, eh? What do you want, and why do you come here for it?" Maso told his story, or rather a tale which he had prepared on his way to the consulate. It was a confused narrative, because he did not wish to betray anything that could give a clew to his mother's address. The consul asked questions. "A failure, eh? What failure?" "It--it wasn't in Leghorn." "And your mother will be back in September? Where is she at present?" "She--she is north; she isn't very well, and--" But he could not think of anything that he could safely add, so he stopped.