ATE threw Giuseppe in my way and caused me to be the only soul on the Portland boat whom he could make understand. Therefore, Giuseppe poured out all his griefs to me as to a brother.
It came to pass in this wise. I was sitting on the horrible magenta plush settee-thing in the after cabin, looking at nothing at all and thinking luxuriously about the same, when this coatless Italian, this son of an out-worn civilization, drifted into my field of vision and came to anchor beside me on the plush. I noticed him particularly because he was very young and unusually good-looking, and because his green sweater and tan shoes made a startling color-scheme with the magenta. He was full-faced and rubicund, also horny-handed, heavy-shouldered, and oppressed with woe. His attitude was dejection itself, and he sighed frequently.
"Buon giorno," I ventured in my best Ollendorff, "conte sta?"
No answer—just a grunt and downcast glances.
"Parlate Italiano?" I persisted, not to be by any means so easily discouraged. Another grunt.
"Nothing doing here!" thought I to myself. "Better let him alone, I guess!" So saying, I crossed over to one of the little polished tables and pulled out a stale newspaper. Giuseppe eyed me half despairingly, half suspiciously. I was an American and therefore rich—all Americans are rich!—and so, of course, his inborn enemy; but none the less it seemed evident I could talk a few words of his native tongue, and that was something.
Presently he came and sat down opposite me at the table.
"Signore," he blurted out abruptly, "you change-a feefty dollar? You change-a feefty dollar bill, eh?"
I looked up, not a little surprised.
"Fifty dollars?" I queried. "You want me to change fifty dollars? Sorry, amico, but I haven't got that much with me—non posso!"
He shrugged his shoulders incredulously.
"Si, si!" he persisted. "You change-a heem all right! You reech-a mans!"
I couldn't help smiling at that. The idea of my being a rich man was a self-evident absurdity.
"Non posso, I tell you!" I retorted. "I can't do it!" With that I opened the flaps of my all but empty pocket-book for his inspection. Evidently such evidence bore no weight with him, for
"Si, si!" he still reiterated irritatingly. "You reech-a mans! Wha' for you no change-a heem?"
"Let's look at your fifty!" I exclaimed, beginning to grow interested in such persistence. "Show me la moneta!"
From the depths of his sub-sweater region he dredged up a very much folded bill. Only the fifty-dollar mark was visible, but the faded dirty yellow told the tale and explained Giuseppe's eagerness. I hated to corroborate the poor devil's only too well-founded suspicions.
"Let's look!" I urged. "Show me some more, più, più!"
He grudgingly unfolded the bill and spread it on the polished table-top. It read: "Confederate States of America ... 1863." Jeff Davis' portrait graced both sides. Its probable value—as a curiosity—might have been ten cents.
"See here, amico," I ventured hesitatingly, "I'm sorry, but that's no good—no good, you understand? Non vale niente—not worth a cent! Confederate money, very old, too old—troppo vecchia! Capite? You understand?"
"Wha' you say? 'S too old, no good-a? Ah-h-h! Corpo di Bacco! My feefty dollar no good? Iddio! Wha's matter my feefty dollar?"
He squared his jaw, frowned ominously, and knotted his fist.
"It's too old, I tell you—Confederate! See here, don't you know what Confederate is? No? ... Well, anyway, it's no good—non vale nemmeno un soldo—not worth a cent!"
"Ah, ha! Falsa moneta? My feefty dollar falsa? I don' know wha' you mean, Confederata—p'raps he's counterfeit-a, eh?"
"No, not false money, only Confederate!" ... Then, to myself: "Hang it all! How the deuce am I going to teach him United States history?—Hullo, there, steward, wait a minute, will you? This man here wants to show you something. Here, amico, show this signore what you've got!"
The steward approached, a lean, thin-blooded type from the Maine coast, leathery-skinned and shifty-eyed. The offspring of orthodox parents and a "superior civilization," he contrasted unfavorably with the illiterate peasant's son, in whose veins still bounded the full red tide of southern life, Giuseppe handed him the bill, half suspiciously.
"No good," he passed his verdict also, "not wuth a tinker's dam!"
Giuseppe understood the tone, if not the words.
"Oh misericordia!" he groaned, now thoroughly convinced, and covered his eyes with his rough hands. "Madre di Dio!—my feefty dollar no good! Jesucristo!" A tear fell on the table-top. The steward walked away with a yellow-toothed grin.