‘I think he talks foolishness, for it is always the same whether we come to a pool or a mountain, or even where the trees grow thickly, or there are flowers on the ground. And then what does the _she_ but uprise also, ah! She is “bella,” the _she_! And puts her hand on his shoulder, ah! The lucky shoulder! and before she has looked, Nicolas gives a big pull so that both sit down on a sudden, upon their ends, and laugh greatly. ‘They laugh always, these--when they do not sigh, and when they sigh sometimes there comes also to my ears another sound, very gentle, like the end of a good drinking. Can they already, then, be thirsty? Why, even I, Pietro, am not yet thirsty, but soon shall be. ‘Yet no, when I turn, saying ‘_Il Signore--ha parlato_?’’ is he not always tying on his boot--very curious must be the boots of the English--and she hooking her glove, and both laughing, yes, always laughing? nor can I see any bottle. ‘Overhead the sky is quite blue, and the sun very yellow, and there be no shade, but the _he_ throws off his hat, and says, “Grand, glorious, ’twill make to grow the hair, Carissima;” this he says many times, so that I learn it by stomach, and the _she_ strokes his top, where the hairs did no longer kiss one another, and purrs--all these things I know through the back of my hat where the brim is broad, and a man half-turning can see with the corner of his eyeball. ‘Now, in a good time we come to where the valley runs away down from the road, and Nicolas, as is the habit of this pighead, when the sun is hot even to the winking of his master’s eye, walks over till he hangs above the valley by the hairs of his tail and the strength of my right arms, and presently with much thanking of God and cursings of that pighead, I pull him up again; at the which what does the _he_ but cast himself back laughing, and say, “Do it again, do it again,” which I am supposing is of great wit, for the _she_ laughs also greatly. ‘Do they think, perchance, that I, Pietro, cannot drive? Chickenheads! it is now of a surety they are mad--I, Pietro, who am a celebration! I too laugh, and so we laugh all three, until we come to where there is good drinking. ‘“_Goutez un petit peu_,” I speak to them in that fool’s tongue--this much knowing, and that quite enough. ‘“_Si, si_,” they say, and nod their tops, yet do not descend. Certainly they have drunk upon the voyage, for the day is hot. Well, well, I, Pietro, am thirsty and so inwards; Nicolas also will drink, but not of the Asti that bubbles sweet and yellow. Ai! Good! Very good drinking; is it not so, my pighead? And what of these? they have not drunk, yet are their eyes shinier than even before, and surely they are _very_ near together.