Outside in the Piazza the tragic history of his incarceration formed a fine subject for talk, and public opinion, which cheerfully supposed him guilty, found extenuating circumstances that almost amounted to innocence. The provocation of being obliged to spend the best part of a _festa_ afternoon in walking down to the sea with a fat white Tedesco was really immense, and the reward of twopence for those lost hours of holiday was nothing less than an insult. What wonder if Luigi for a moment mislaid his honesty, what wonder if when so smooth-faced and ready-made a temptation came, he just yielded to it for a second? Certainly it was wrong to steal, everyone knows that--_Mamma mia,_ what a rocket, what a _bellezza_ of stars!--but it was also primarily wrong to dock a jolly boy of his promised half-holiday. No wonder, when the German signor--ah, it was the same, no doubt, as was sick in Antonio's carriage the other day, and refused to pay for a new rug--no wonder, when that fat-head, that pumpkin (for who but a pumpkin would carry a hundred liras about with him?) swam away round the corner of those rocks, that Luigi's hand just paid a visit to his great pockets to see if he was as poor as that miserable tip of twopence seemed to say! Then he found the portfolio, and turned bitter with the thought of the _quattro soldi_ which was all that had been given him for his loss of the half-holiday. Ah, look! Was it really a wheel like that on which Santa Caterina had been bound? How she must have spun round! What giddiness! What burning! A steadfast soul not to have consented to worship Apollo; no wonder that Holy Church made a saint of her. But what could Luigi have done with the portfolio and the note for a hundred liras? He had been searched and on him was nothing found; his room had been searched, but there was nothing there. Was it possible that he was innocent, _il povero?_ Could the sick German gentleman really have lost his foolish pocket-book by natural means as he came up from his bathe? It might be worth while taking a walk there to-morrow, always keeping a peeled eye on the margin of the path. It was possible, after all, that he had lost his pocket-book all by himself, without aid from Luigi, for the hole in his pocket was admitted, and shown to the manager of the Grand Hotel. But then there was Luigi's fatal knowledge of the hole in his pocket. That was very bad; that looked like guilt. If only the boy had held his tongue and not said that fatal thing! He only suggested that there was a hole in his pocket? No, no; he said there _was_ a hole in his pocket, didn't he? What a lesson to keep the tongue still! Luigi had always a lot to learn about keeping the tongue still, for who will soon forget the dreadful things he shouted out last winter at the priest, his mother's cousin's uncle, when he had smacked his head? They were quite true, too, like the hole in the pocket.... Ah, there is the great bomb. Pouf! How it echoes! So the fireworks are over! _Buona notte! Buona notte!_