They had left the village street behind and were tottering over a rude wagon trail that threaded the thicket of dwarf oaks on whose margin crouched the dwelling of the Tomatoes. The site of the iron villa was not far distant, and from its kitchen chimney a spiral of ascending smoke showed plainly in the sunlight that bathed the flat landscape. From the railroad cut the muffled roar of a passing train lent a basso undertone to the squeak and clack of the voluble stage. At length they struck into the road that borders the railway, and the banker leaned out of the vehicle and peered ahead, wondering if all were well with Bridget and the youngsters. As he drew nearer, the deeper became a look of horror that had come upon his face. “_Diavolo!_” he exclaimed at last. “A new calamity!” “What is it?” “Half of my house is gone.” One woe-begone pipe was all that he could see of the imposing double-tubed villa that reclined there so proudly two days before. Stripped of the foliage that had shielded it and its mate from the burning sun, it loomed black in ominous nakedness. Had further evidence of disaster been needful, the countenance of Bridget would have supplied it abundantly. Like a feminine Marius, she sat amid the ruins of the Tomato Carthage. Strewn about her in wild disorder were the twigs of oak that had been so carefully fashioned over the pipes, mingled with the bedclothes and boxes that had furnished the interior of the dormitory. The little garden of tomato plants that had been set out at the back doors bore the vandal marks of hobnailed boots and was slashed with the tracks of heavy wheels. “Where’s the other pipe?” shrieked the banker before the stage came to a stop. “Howly shamrock, Domenico, is it yersilf? Sure I thought they was comin’ for the rest iv the house. Where aire ye these two days, and the worruld comin’ to an ind all around us?” “No ees-a maka differenza where I’m goin’ be,” he said, jumping down, followed by Signor Di Bello, Carolina, and Armando. “I ask-a you where ees-a de oder pipa?” “Ax the divvil and he’ll tell yer betther, for the ground has opened and shwalleyed it.” There was a chorus of whoops at the edge of the brush, and the trio of juvenile Tomatoes came trooping toward their father. “What-a kind talk you call-a dees-a?” he said, glaring at Bridget and pushing away the children fiercely. “I ask-a you, where ees-a de pipa?” “And I answer that I don’t knaw, Dominick Tomah-toe! Me and the childer was away beyandt there, pickin’ dandelie-yuns, d’ye moind! Be the sun, I’m thinkin’ we was gone two hours. Well, whin we got back only the wan pipe was there, and a cushibaloo made iv the place as ye see it now.” “And Bertino, where ees-a?” “Gone wid the pipe.” “Goin’ weet de pipa?” echoed the others. “Didn’t I say it?” “And de bust-a, ees-a where?” asked Signor Di Bello. “Gone wid the pipe.”