Possibly there was something unusual in the tone of Ercole’s voice, for Nino suddenly sat up beside his master’s knee, forgetting all about the bread, and watched Paoluccio too, as if he expected something.  But nothing happened.  Paoluccio opened a cupboard in the wall with a key he carried, took out a bottle of the coarse aniseed spirits which the Roman peasants drink, and filled himself a small glass of the stuff, which he tossed off with evident pleasure.  Then he filled his pipe, lit it carefully, and went to the door again.  By this time, though he had apparently not bestowed the least attention on Ercole, he had made up his mind about him, and was not mistaken.  Ercole belonged to the better class of customers.

“You come from the Roman shore?” he said, with an interrogation.

“To serve you,” Ercole assented, with evident willingness to enter into conversation.  “I am a keeper and watchman on the lands of Signor Corbario.”

Paoluccio took his pipe from his mouth and nodded twice.

“That is a very rich gentleman, I have heard,” he observed.  “He owns much land.”

“It all belongs to his stepson, now that the young gentleman is of age,” Ercole answered.  “But as it was his mother’s, and she married Signor Corbario, we have the habit of the name.”

“What is the name of the stepson?” asked Paoluccio.

“Consalvi,” Ercole replied.

Paoluccio said nothing to this, but lit his pipe again with a sulphur match.

“Evil befall the soul of our government!” he grumbled presently, with insufficient logic, but meaning that the government sold bad tobacco.

“You must have heard of the young gentleman,” Ercole said.  “His name is Marcello Consalvi.  They say that he lay ill for a long time at an inn on this road—­”

“For the love of heaven, don’t talk to me about Marcello Consalvi!” cried Paoluccio, suddenly in a fury.  “Blood of a dog!  If you had not the face of an honest man I should think you were another of those newspaper men in disguise, pigs and animals that they are and sons of evil mothers, and ill befall their wicked dead, and their little dead ones, and those that shall be born to them!”

Paoluccio’s eyes were bloodshot and he spat furiously, half across the road.  Nino watched him and hitched the side of his upper lip on one of his lower fangs, which produced the effect of a terrific smile.  Ercole was unmoved.

“I suppose,” he observed, “that they said it happened in your inn.”

“And why should it happen in my inn, rather than in any other inn?” inquired Paoluccio angrily.

“Indeed,” said Ercole, “I cannot imagine why they should say that it did!  Some one must have put the story about.  A servant, perhaps, whom you sent away.”

“We did not send Regina away,” answered Paoluccio, still furious.  “She ran away in the night, about that time.  But, as you say, she may have invented the story and sent the newspaper men here to worry our lives with their questions, out of mere spite.”