She paused before the mutilated but heroic figure of an American Jack Tar who stood in wooden repose at the door of Signor Tomato. In their palmy days the banks of Mulberry--then more numerous than the colony’s midwives--had a trick of closing their doors when the amount of deposits made it worth while, to the increase of the suicide rate and the encouragement of stiletto practice upon the bankers who got caught. After a while the Legislature did a little closing, and Signor Tomato, one of the poor but honest caste, had to take his gruel along with the others. He could not take any more deposits, but he kept on with his money-exchange business, and when to this he decided to add an agency for Mediterranean steamships he admitted the Jack Tar as a silent partner. At the time they joined forces the sailor was young and handsome. The tobacconist with whom he began his career had failed after less than a year of ill fortune. But his youth and hardy physique were no match for the climate of Mulberry, which soon proved as ruinous to his manly beauty as it had to Signor Di Bello’s real bananas. First one of his weather eyes disappeared, then the fine Greek nose took leave, and in quick order both ears vanished; at length an arm and a half melted away, soon followed by a whole foot. It all came of his lounging on the sidewalk at hours when not even a respectable wooden Indian is found out of doors. Signor Tomato would have insisted on his coming in of nights, but there was not an inch of room to spare within the bank, with his wife and three little Tomatoes all living there, not to speak of the counter, the large dry-goods box that served for a safe, the family chair, and the cook stove. Once he wheeled his silent partner into the countingroom--just after the loss of his left ear--but the door could not be closed, and out he had to go again into the ravaging night. It was not the long-suffering Jack Tar that arrested Carolina’s steps, but this placard pendent from his neck: +---------------------------------+ | Per Genova Juno 1, | | Piroscafo Spartan King, | | Qui si Vendono Biglietti di | | Passaggio a Prezzi d’Occasione. | +---------------------------------+ (For Genoa June 1, the Spartan King. Passage Tickets for sale here at Bargain Prices.)