“To-morrow! Boiling blood of San Gennaro! But I will do it, signorina; I will get the ticket.” Instantly Banca Tomato became a scene of bustle and excitement. The padrone sprang for the door, pushing aside Bridget and scattering her brood. He darted behind the curtain and reappeared in a second with his coat and hat. “In ten minutes you shall know,” he said, making off in the direction of Broadway, where there was a real agency of the line. “Will ye sit down?” said Bridget, placing the family chair near Carolina, at the foot of the Jack Tar. “Wisha! Black toimes it is for bankers, and no babies comin’ to kape the wolf from the dure. It’s mesilf that remimbers this day four years come Patrick’s mornin’ when me Biddy first saw the light. Arrah, manny’s the family wanted me thin for a wet nurse, and a fine pinny had they to pay, thim that got Bridget Tomah-toe. Thin it was meat in the soup ivry day. And now phat is it? Cabbage in a sup iv water, and secondhand cabbage, too, manny’s the toime. But I’m after raisin’ the little darlints as good as anny in Mulberry, and much better, should anny wan ax ye.” “Who ask-a me? I’m know northeen ’bout dat,” said Carolina, whose English scholarship had few equals in the colony. “Iv coorse ye don’t. Sure the signorinies are not expected to, and they be ould enough to vote ivry hour on ’lection day. It’s lucky y’are to be goin’ back to the ould country. How long is it y’re out?” “Ees twelf year dat I’m in deesa countree.” “Twelve years! Howly Mother! And ye’re not married yet! Troth I was Signory Tomah-toe the first year I landed.” “What I’m care?” retorted Carolina. “You mague too moocha noise from de mout. Ees better you goin’ keep-a still.” Luckily for the cash interests of the bank, Signor Tomato appeared at this point, for Bridget was not a woman to adopt any one’s suggestion that she hold her tongue. Carolina got her steamship ticket, and the banker pocketed the first commission he had received in a week. There was meat in the Tomato soup that night, and on the way from the butcher’s Bridget, with Pat, Mike, and Biddy at her apron hem, stopped in the Caffè of the Beautiful Sicilian and bought each of them a green cake out of the chromatic display in the window. While the youngsters were all eyes and hands for the pastry, Bridget was all sight and mind for a certain living picture that she beheld in the half gloom of the _caffè’s_ innermost depth. Seated at a table were Bertino and Juno the Superb. She was tipping pensively a glass of red wine, and he, with paper and ink before him, writhed in the throes of pen-wielding.