ROUND an ebony table (which really turned out to be white marble when the flies were driven off with a duster), behind closed shutters, and accompanied by the chirping of grasshoppers, the lawyer read the deed of transfer before the brothers Pastafina, the Syndic and Lewis who signed it. Six million lire, plus the costs of the sale, plus various commissions, plus the State tax, plus the registration fees, the foreigner's residential tax, the tourist fees, plus the municipal taxes, plus poor rate, odd centimes, so much per cent for war cripples, etc., etc. In evidence of an early development, blue prints of contoured surveys lay on the ground. On the mantelpiece a blow lamp, some samples, a bottle of maraschino. After the exchange of signatures the journalist took Lewis by the arm and went with him as far as the garage. Lewis wanted a car to go over the land in, but at the garage he was told that a foreign lady had hired the only car the town boasted. Yes, she left immediately after lunch, driving herself (an astonishing thing in the south where even the humblest driver never moves without an "assistant" to start the engine, so as to economise his own strength). "Then let's go back to your hotel and have a drink," said Pastafina. "I'm going your way." He added lyrically:-- "Behold the beginning of the season; it is snowing in Paris, dear boy. Foreigners are already beginning to arrive here, asking themselves whether it is better to be bored in the country or ill in town. Once more the barbarian hordes swarm down towards the cities of the sun, of art and of fashionable complaints. Sicily, mind you, really is a land of demi-gods and giants, in spite of old English women and their lace schools." "Pastifina is right," thought Lewis, as he went down those crowded alleys with their soup-like atmosphere where cabins distempered with the Reckitt blue colour which one finds all over the East, sprang up amongst the eucalyptus trees. And tomato sauce spread out everywhere like a national banner! He stopped at the filthiest blind alleys where heaps of refuse consisting of squeezed-out lemons, dead rats, chicken feathers, old boots, grey hair and fish bones were fermenting together. Pigs slept beneath people's beds. Little herd boys, who were much too good looking, drove goats tied by the leg before them with long bamboos used for cleaning out drains, cursing in their Sicilian dialect full of Spanish words. A gentle breeze before the prison stirred the feathers of the Bersagliere sentries.