"No," replied I; "without joking I will tell you what is passing in your mind. You have just come from the house of Guiseppe the goatherd, and you are disappointed because he has not paid you the three pauls that he promised to pay you after three days. Am I right?" "_Per Bacco!_" exclaimed Antonio. "Surely your Excellency is a saint, and it has been revealed to you. How else could you have known that?" "Does that surprise you," said I. "What would you say if I could tell you more? If I could tell you the day and the hour that you lent the three pauls to your friend? What would you say if I told you it was last Tuesday week in the forenoon, and how you first hesitated to lend the money, having some doubt as to your friend's integrity, but how, after having invoked certain curses on his own head in default of his not being able to pay, you at length yielded, and lent him the three pauls?" "_Diavolo!_ Eccellenza must be a saint indeed to know all that," cried the peasant, dumbfounded. "Would you like to know more?" I asked. "At the expiration of the three days you have been regularly every morning to the house of the goatherd, expecting to receive the three pauls, and each time he has sent you away with a different excuse." "_O anime sante mie del Purgatorio!_"[14] exclaimed the peasant, crossing himself devoutly. "Either your Excellency is a saint, or you have the demon within you." "Ha! say you so?" said I. "I will even venture to prophecy that you will never get the three pauls." "Oh, pray don't say that, Signor. Pray don't say that I shall _never_ be paid. Why should your Excellency think so?" asked the peasant, dismally. "Why! do you ask? Because the saints love you not," said I. "How, Signor? Was that also revealed to you? Why should they not love me? How have I merited their wrath?" he asked, whiningly. "By charging me twice the sum you charge other people for that _quarteruolo_ of wine, and for repenting afterwards that you had not asked me four times the sum, as, being an Englishman, you thought to get it out of me." "_Corpo di San Antonio di Padova!_"[15] cried the peasant, casting up his eyes. "Is nothing to be hid from you? Well, Eccellenza, what serves it to deny the truth, since you know everything? I am a poor man, and when an opportunity occurs for bettering myself, I am apt to do what most men do who know what want is." "Well, my friend," said I "you will find through life that 'honesty is the best policy,' and that 'cheats never prosper,' at least, for long. For when the cheat is discovered, his reputation is lost for ever, while the honest man who sticks steadily to his labour, and puts aside his scanty earnings, not wasting them in drinking or gambling, in the end is blessed by the saints who give him fortune." "That is most true," replied the peasant. "Eccellenza has spoken like the preacher," and seizing my hand, he kissed it, and was about to proceed on his journey.