‘Look at that,’ he laughed, nodding toward a house where a pig was stretched asleep in the doorway. ‘He’s evidently been left to keep guard while the family are at the festa. I suppose you’ve noticed that every house is Genazzano has a separate door for the chickens cut in the bottom of the big door. It’s rather funny, isn’t it?’ Marcia regarded the pig with a laugh and a sigh. ‘Yes, it’s funny; but then, the first thing you know, you begin to think what a low standard of life the people must have who keep their pigs and their chickens in the house with them, and it doesn’t seem funny any more.’ ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You’re coming on.’ ‘I’m afraid I am!’ she agreed. As they strolled toward the upper part of the town, they came upon a group of men and boys talking and smoking and throwing dice in a prolonged noonday rest. It was a part of the pilgrimage from the village of Castel Vivalanti, and the group instantly recognized Marcia. The festal spirit of the day, joined to a double portion of wine, had made them more boisterous than usual; and one ragged little urchin, who had been playing the part of buffoon for the crowd, fell upon the two signori as a fresh subject for pleasantries. He set up the usual beggar’s whine, asking for soldi. The two paying no attention, he changed the form of his petition. ‘Signorina,’ he implored, running along at Marcia’s side and keeping a dirty hand extended impudently in front of her, ‘I have hunger, signorina; I have hunger. Spare me, for the love of God, a few grains of wheat.’ ‘That’s a new formula,’ Marcia laughed. ‘It’s usually bread they want; I never heard them ask for wheat before.’ Sybert turned on the boy, with an air of threatening, and he hastily scrambled out of reach, though he still persevered in his petition, to the noisy amusement of the crowd. Marcia spread out empty hands. ‘I have no wheat,’ she said, with a shake of her head. The youngster turned to his following, mimicking her. ‘The signorina has no wheat,’ he cried. ‘Will no one give to the signorina? She is poor and she has hunger.’ Some one tossed a soldo. The boy pounced upon it and extended it toward her. ‘Behold, signorina! This good man is poor, but he is generous. He offers you money to get some wheat.’ Marcia laughed at the play in thorough enjoyment, while Sybert, with an angry light in his eye, seized the boy by the collar and cuffed him soundly. ‘Mr. Sybert,’ she cried, ‘take care; you’ll hurt him!’ ‘I mean to hurt him,’ he said grimly, as with a final cuff he dropped him over the side of the bank. The crowd jeered at his downfall as loudly as they had jeered at his impudence, and the two turned a corner and left them behind. ‘You needn’t have struck him,’ Marcia said. ‘The boy didn’t mean anything beyond being funny. He is one of my best friends; his name is Beppo, and he lives next door to the baker’s shop.’