“But without doubt you go somewhere in the evening?” he said, with a mixture of wistfulness and triumphant pride. He was proud of Harry’s succès in society; but yet to have so little of him pained the faithful soul. He had bettered his English, but perhaps he had not much improved his happiness by his devotion to this stranger, to whom he had been so useful. Harry gave him very little of his company, and no demonstration of affection in return for his love.
“No; I want you to come to my rooms, Paolo. I want to consult you about something--we’ll have some coffee brought up there, and we’ll have a talk.”
“Benissimo!” said Paolo, glowing with pleasure. “However,” he added with simplicity, “there is little that I can instruct you in now. You know all--you are better as me. But if there is any case that is hard to understand----”
“You make me ashamed of myself,” said Harry; “do you really think I never want to see you but when I have something to ask? I don’t think I am quite so bad as that. Of course I have picked your brains constantly; but still I am not so bad as that.”
At this Paolo was up in arms, as if some terrible accusation had been brought against him.
“Pardon, pardon, Amico,” he said. “Do you think I am finding fault? do you think I make myself a censure over you (he meant censor, but this was unimportant)? It is all otherwise. To see you go into society makes me pleasure--the grandest pleasure. If not me, it is my friend--it is as good--better, as to go myself. You pick my brains--_bene_! my brains is glad to be pick.”
“I think you are the best fellow in the world,” Harry said, “and I am a beast always to take advantage of you--to come to you whenever I want you.”
“What then is a friend?” said Paolo, with that glistening of the eyes which Harry was always afraid of. And then the excellent fellow suppressed himself, knowing Harry’s objections to a scene. “I am a duffare,” he said, with a laugh, “if there is something I can do that makes me glad.”
“I want your advice, Paolo,” said Harry; “it is nothing about business; it is not information I want from you. I am in a difficulty--I am in trouble--and I want your advice.”
“In troouble!” Paolo’s face grew long, long as his arm; his lively imagination harped at various cases of “troouble” he had known: defalcations at the office, difficulties about money, fallings into temptation. His countenance clouded with anxiety and alarm. “Amico,” he said, “I am all at your disposition--all at your disposition! Troouble! let us not lose the time. That turns me the stomach, as you say. Thanks, thanks, Antonio; but take it away--I cannot more eat.”