He stopped at a corner house abutting on a tree-shadowed square, with a loggia ending in a sort of roof-garden; and, stumbling through a dark archway, and falling over several garden and household tools on to a steep stairway, drew further upon his vocabulary for the epithet, "Beastly rotten hole." By this time the rumble tumble of his wild scramble up the stairs had brought out a stalwart form, a few rays of light and words of welcome, from the door of a room opening on the loggia. "Here at last, young un? How many more of you? Row enough for ten." It was a shaggy-bearded, brown-faced man, with deep-set eyes of piercing lustre and a forehead like a cliff-wall, roughly dressed, but clean-looking as an Englishman, though his name ended in ski; he had risen from a table covered with papers of various script, newspaper cuttings and journals in many tongues, and furnished with a type-writing machine. A bed, a chest of drawers topped by a milk-jug in a slop-basin, a small, square looking-glass, a clothes-press, two chairs, an easel, a bag of golf-clubs, some walking-sticks and mineral-water bottles, several pairs of boots, a wood basket and books of all sizes, falling out of packing-cases and strewn over bed, chairs, floor and every available ledge, completed the furniture of a fair-sized sunny room with an open hearth, on which some wood ashes gave token of a former fire. "Snug," the host said, indicating the surroundings with a sweep of the hand, and tipping a pile of books off a chair. "Topping," replied the guest, stepping gingerly through the archipelago of books, and surveying the scene with ill-dissembled disgust. "You seem jolly chippy this morning. What's the row?" continued the host, handing a cigarette-box. "Nothing much. Only stone-broke." "What, again? I say, young un, you'll do this once too often." "I jolly well have." "Oh, come along and have some lunch. Can you do with native fare? I feed at the _osteria_ over there, and hear all the gossip of the place. Olives, cheese, omelettes, sardines, salad, coffee, _vin du pays_." "Thanks. I bar the vinegar." The enjoyment of this simple menu appeared to lighten the young man's cheer considerably. His appetite, for a person who had been contemplating a violent exit from a world of care at intervals all the forenoon, was not bad--a circumstance not unobserved by his host. The table talk was impersonal and even lighter than the fare. An anecdote spiced with dry humour drew from the stony-broke a light-hearted, boyish laugh, the gay ring of which attracted the attention and sympathetic smiles of some workmen and peasants. "He has a light heart, that one," they told each other in their patois, as if the possession of a light heart were guarantee of all that is admirable in man. "Didn't you try ranching once?" the light-hearted one suddenly asked the man of piercing gaze. "I did. Once." "Any money in ranching?" "Best part of mine left in it."