Giovanni Borgi, though poor and almost illiterate, had worked all his life in the holy places and was regarded by his fellows as very nearly a saint. While he worked he prayed, and when working hours were over he went regularly to the great Hospital of Santo Spirito in the “Borgo” and sat up late into the night nursing the sick and comforting the dying. The only reproach ever addressed to him was that he sometimes got sleepy over his work the morning after some unusually long vigil by the bedside of some sufferer who had entreated him to remain with him. Everybody loved the queer little man, and he loved all the world but himself. To this person he never gave a thought. Heaven had made him short and stumpy—but he could walk as well as the youngest; he had but one eye—but its sight was perfect; a funny bald head—but somebody had given him an old wig to cover it with; what was there to complain about? So, being empty of itself, his heart had room for others, and he took his fellow-beings’ wants and sufferings very seriously. One evening, before going to the hospital, he was accompanying a religious procession through the streets, when he noticed the dark forms of a little crowd of sleepers on the steps of the Pantheon. Coming nearer, he found that they were boys of various ages, ragged and forlorn, huddled together for warmth, and sound asleep. A little farther on, under the tables where fowls were sold in the daytime, more of these waifs had taken refuge. The sight grieved the good mason deeply. He could not pass on and leave them thus. Rousing some of them, he asked many questions and learnt that not one of them had a home or a guardian. Orphans, runaway boys from the hill villages, waifs of one sort and another—here was one of those collections of abandoned children who would later become criminals unless some kind hand were stretched out to save them. Giovanni did not hesitate for a moment. He bade the little crowd follow him to his lodging. There was one of those great ground-floor rooms only used for storing properties or cattle—no Roman will sleep near the ground if he can help it, for fear of fever—and in this barn-like place Giovanni bestowed his ragged guests after giving them whatever he could beg or buy for their supper.