Yes, the old Count went on, now he would never go. He was not like his younger brother, Lucio. Lucio was a rogue, _furbo_, sly; he had no conscience. But Fabio had ideas about duty, and lived up to them. Once he had engaged himself, he would stick to his engagements, obstinately, with all the mulishness of his character. Well, now he lived on the estate, in the big painted house at Dolo. Three days a week he came into Padua for his military duties, and the rest of his time he devoted to the estate. It brought in, now, more than it had ever done before. But goodness knew, the old man complained, that was little enough. Bread and oil, and wine and milk, and chickens and beef--there was plenty of those and to spare. Fabio could have a family of fifty and they would never starve. But ready money--there wasn’t much of that. “In England,” the Count concluded, “you are rich. But we Italians....” He shook his head. I spent the next quarter of an hour trying to persuade him that we were not all millionaires. But in vain. My statistics, based on somewhat imperfect memories of Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb, carried no conviction. In the end I gave it up. The next morning Fabio appeared at the door of my hotel in a large, very old and very noisy Fiat. It was the family machine-of-all-work, bruised, scratched, and dirtied by years of service. Fabio drove it with a brilliant and easy recklessness. We rushed through the town, swerving from one side of the narrow street to the other, with a disregard for the rules of the road which, in a pedantic country like England, would have meant at the least a five-pound fine and an endorsed licence. But here the Carabiniers, walking gravely in couples under the arcades, let us pass without comment. Right or left--after all, what did it matter? “Why do you keep the silencer out?” I shouted through the frightful clamour of the engine. Fabio slightly shrugged his shoulders. “_È piu allegro così_,” he answered. I said no more. From a member of this hardy race which likes noise, which enjoys discomfort, a nerve-ridden Englishman could hardly hope to get much sympathy.