accused made by the lawyer, who prosecuted on the behalf of the municipality.

The Pastorini had never known that they ought to bring a lawyer, and old Pippo, in an agony, pulled Gigi Canterelli's coat, and whispered:

'There's a notary against him—there's a man of law against him. O Lord! O Lord! he's no more chance than a lamb when it's hung up by the heels, head downward!'

'Eh!' muttered Gigi with a sigh, in our old times one young fellow fought it out with another, when there was any bone to pick, and no one meddled; it was the best man won; now, Lord save us! if but two cats set up their backs and spit, there's law about it.'

'Order there! Silence!' cried the usher; and the case for the prosecution went on glibly till, listening to it, the brains

of the Pastorini, father and son, reeled, and

almost gave way.

6

Carmelo began to say to himself in amaze, Am I indeed this villain doubledyed ?'

For the advocate of the commune, instructed sub rosâ by Messer Nellemane, was a very eloquent-tongued man indeed, who, having little to do, and very small means indeed, had always his oratory ready bottled and almost bursting, like ginger-beer upon a summer's day.

When he had done his plea for the prosecution, and had resumed his seat, there was no one to answer or refute him.

Carmelo and his friends knew too late the terrible blunder they had committed in their ignorance of having no other man of law there to reply to him.

The examination of the accused began.

Carmelo, answering as to his age and name, and parentage, added then in a firm voice,

'Bindo Terri poisoned my dog; I beat him; yes, if I had killed him I should have done no wrong; he is a beast; he is a devil; he tortures brutes and men

'Silence!' said the Judge. 'You can vilify no one. You are only to answer my questions, one by one, as I put them to you.'

'But he is right! He is right!' shrieked old Pippo, pressing forward to the bar, behind which he and the rest of the public. were hemmed in. He is right! he is right! By the word of Christ our Saviour! Bindo Terri wanted to stop my brook running; wanted to make me pay for the good God's own clear spring water—'

'Take that fool out of court,' said the

Pretore, and the old man was carried out struggling and screaming for justice.

Then the cross-examination of Carmelo began again in such an endless intricacy of questions that the boy's head whirled. Wiser and more worldly-trained intelligences than his have been confused, and blurred, and bewildered out of all their own sense of memory and certitude of fact by the brow-beating of such an interrogation.

Did he see Bindo Terri poison his dog? No he did not see it; but the guard poisoned all dogs he could get at; that anyone knew; the guard poisoned Toppa, certainly, certainly. So he kept on saying, again and again, almost stupidly; and the tears welled into his eyes, and began to fall down his cheeks, thinking of the dead dog, and of the maiden sitting weeping at home on the

day that should have been her marriage

morn.

The Pretore and, after him, the lawyer for the prosecution tormented him over and over again to much the same purport. All Carmelo could say was, 'he poisoned the dog; he poisoned the dog.'

That was all he could say.
He had no proofs.

His father begged to speak for him, but was told it was not to be permitted. Gigi Canterelli, with the moisture in his eyes, begged, too, to testify to his excellent nature and great amiability; and the Vicar of Santa Rosalia entreated to be heard as to the youth's good and kindly character, his docility and his honesty, as one who had known him from his infancy upward.

But this latter witness harmed him rather than benefited him in the eyes of